Museums

DASAR-DASAR PENELITIAN SEJARAH

2010-10-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

LANGKAH-LANGKAH PENELITIAN

Seseorang yang akan melakukan penelitian sejarah harus memahami metode sejarah. Metode sejarah adalah proses menguji dan menganalisa secara kritis rekaman dari peninggalan masa lampau. Metode tersebut terdiri dari serangkaian langkah atau prosedur yang harus ditempuh oleh si peneliti dalam melakukan penelitiannya agar dapat berlangsung secara objektif. Dengan demikian metode sejarah dipandang sebagai alat atau sarana bagi peneliti untuk melaksanakan penelitian dan penulisan sejarah.
Langkah-langkah yang dimaksud adalah :

1. Pemilihan Topik.

Sebelum melakukan peneliian sejarah, langkah pertama yang harus dilakukan adalah menetapkan topik yang akan diteliti. Topik yang diteliti haruslah merupakan topik yang layak untuk dijadikan bahan penelitian dan bukan merupakan pengulangan atau duplikasi dari penelitian sebelumnya. Kelayakan topik penelitian dapat dilihat dari ketersediaan sumber yang dapat dijadikan bahan untuk penelitian. Jangan sampai kita menetapkan topik yang menarik tetapi sumbernya ternyata tidak ada. Berbeda dengan penelitian ilmu pengetahuan lainnya, penelitian sejarah sangat tergantung kepada ketersedian sumber. Jadi topik yang diteliti harus merupakan hal yang baru dan diharapkan dapat memberikan informasi yang baru atau ditemukan teori baru.
Pemilihan topik harus memperhatikan hal-hal berikut :
1. Menarik untuk diteliti
2. Asli, bukan merupakan pengulangan
3. Ketersediaan sumber
4. Kedekatan emosional, misalnya yang berhubungan dengan lingkungan sekitar kita
Pemilihan topik ini sangat penting agar peneliti lebih terarah dan terfokus pada masalahnya. Untuk mengarahkan, dalam topik tersebut sebaiknya kita ajukan terlebih dahulu pertanyaan yang akan menjadi masalah yang akan diteliti. Pertanyaan itu meliputi: what (apa), why (mengapa), who (siapa), where (dimana), when (kapan), dan how (bagaimana).

Pertanyaan itu diajukan agar penelitian lebih bersifat ilmiah. Misalnya kita akan meneliti tentang sejarah peristiwa Lengkong. Maka pertanyaan yang dapat kita ajukan adalah : Apa yang dimaksud dengan peristiwa Lengkong ? Mengapa peristiwa itu bisa terjadi ? Siapa tokoh pelaku dalam peristiwa itu ? Dimana terjadinya peristiwa itu ? Kapan terjadinya peristiwa itu ? Bagaimana jalannya peristiwa itu ?

2. Pengumpulan Data/Sumber

Setelah menetapkan topik, langkah selanjutnya adalah pengumpulan data sebagai sumber penelitian. Tahap ini disebut juga dengan heuristik (bhs. Yunani : Heureskein = menemukan).

Tahap heuristik adalah tindakan sejarawan untuk mengumpulkan sumber dan jejak-jejak sejarah yang diperlukan yang terkait dengan masalah yang diteliti. Pencarian dapat dilakukan diberbagai dokumen, mengunjungi situs sejarah, atau dengan mewawancarai tokoh yang menjadi saksi atau mengetahui tentang suatu peristiwa sejarah. Untuk memudahkan penelitian, sumber-sumber sejarah yang begitu banyak dan kompleks perlu diklasifikasikan.

Sumber sejarah adalah segala sesuatu yang secara langsung maupun tidak menyampaikan kepada kita tentang sesuatu peristiwa dimasa lalu. Sumber sejarah merupakan bukti dan fakta adanya kenyataan sejarah. Tanpa adanya sumber, sejarawan tidak akan bisa berbicara apa-apa tentang masa lalu.

Adapun sumber sejarah berasal dari bukti-bukti sejarah (evidensi), yaitu segala sesuatu yang dapat dipandang sebagai peninggalan sejarah yang dapat memberikan informasi tentang terjadinya peristiwa pada masa lampau. Sumber tersebut dapat berupa sumber lisan, tulisan, dan benda-benda peninggalan sejarah berupa artefak, fosil, prasasti, dan lain-lain.

Sumber lisan yaitu setiap tuturan lisan yang disampaikan oleh orang atau kelompok orang tentang suatu peristiwa nyata yang terjadi pada masa lampau. Sedangkan sumber tulisan, yaitu segala bentuk informasi mengenai peristiwa sejarah yang diperoleh dari berbagai tulisan. Dan sumber yang berupa benda budaya peninggalan sejarah atau artefak adalah segala macam bentuk benda budaya yang diduga pernah digunakan oleh masyarakat manusia pada masa lampau yang dapat memberi informasi tentang peristiwa masa lampau.

Sumber sejarah dapat dibagi kedalam dua jenis, yaitu sumber primer dan sumber sekunder. Sumber primer adalah sumber asli, berupa kesaksian pelaku atau saksi mata yang hadir dan melihat suatu peristiwa. Sumber ini diperoleh dan dihasilkan dari sisa atau jejak dan orang yang sejaman dengan peristiwa itu. Sumber sekunder adalah sumber yang diperoleh dari tangan kedua, yaitu orang yang tahu suatu peristiwa, tetapi tidak hadir dan melihat peristiwa itu berlangsung. Dapat pula ditambahkan bahwa sumber sejarah dapat berupa sumber formal dan non formal.

Menemukan sumber sejarah tidaklah mudah, mengingat ada peristiwa yang sedikit sekali meninggalkan jejak, bahkan karena sesuatu hal tidak meninggalkan jejak sama sekali. Namun ada pula peristiwa yang meninggalkan jejak yang melimpah. Selain itu sumber sejarah ada yang dengan cepat ditemukan dan diketahui, tetapi ada pula yang setelah beberapa waktu yang lama kemudian baru diketahui. Hal ini bisa terjadi karena jarak waktu. Semakin dekat jarak waktu antara sipeneliti dengan peristiwa sejarah, semakin banyak sumber sejarah yang dapat diperoleh. Sebaliknya, semakin jauh jarak waktunya, semakin langka dan sedikit sumber sejarah yang didapatkan.

3. Verifikasi

Sebelum data dan sumber sejarah yang terkumpul digunakan sebagai pendukung penelitian, terlebih dahulu dilakukan Verifikasi (pengujian), baik dari segi kebenaran materi atau isi maupun keaslian dari data sumber tersebut. Dalam ilmu sejarah tahap ini disebut kritik. Kritik sejarah tersebut meliputi kritik intern yaitu kritik terhadap isi dan materi, dan kritik ekstern yaitu kritik terhadap keaslian sumber-sumber tersebut.

Kritik intern adalah penilaian keakuratan atau keautentikan terhadap materi sumber sejarah. Didalam proses analisa terhadap suatu dokumen, sejarawan harus selalu memikirkan unsur-unsur yang relevan didalam dokumen itu sendiri secara keseluruhan. Unsur didalam dokumen dianggap relevan dan dapat dipercaya (kredibel) apabila unsur itu paling dekat dengan apa yang telah terjadi. Identifikasi terhadap sipembuat dokumen atau sumber sejarah pun perlu dilakukan untuk menguji keautentikannya.
Kritik ekstern umumnya menyangkut keaslian bahan yang digunakan dalam pembuatan sumber sejarah, seperti prasasti, dokumen, dan naskah. Untuk membedakan itu suatu tipuan dari dokumen asli, sejarawan dapat menggunakan pengujian yang biasa digunakan didalam penyelidikan polisi dan kehakiman. Bentuk penelitian yang dapat dilakukan sejarawan misalnya tentang waktu pembuatan dokumen, atau penelitian tentang bahan materi pembuatan.

4. Interpretasi

Setelah memberikan kritik terhadap sumber, langkah berikutnya adalah memberikan penafsiran atau interpretasi.
Pada tahap ini dapat berlaku sifat subjektifitas, karena sejarawan akan melihat sumber sejarah dari sudut pandang yang berbeda. Perbedaan penafsiran terhadap suatu peristiwa yang sama mungkin juga terjadi.
Perbedaan tersebut terjadi karena diantara para sejarawan memiliki pandangan, wawasan, ketertarikan, ideology, kepentingan, latar belakang sosial dan tujuan yang berbeda.

Interpretasi pada dasarnya merupakan langkah yang dilakukan dalam menjawab permasalahan dari topik yang diteliti. Fakta yang dihasilkan melalui kritik harus dihubungkan antara yang satu dengan yang lainnya, terutama dalam konteks hubungan sebab akibat atau adanya hubungan yang sangat berarti/signifikan.

5. Historiografi

Historiografi atau penulisan sejarah merupakan langkah bagaimana sejarawan mengkomunikasikan hasil penelitiannya untuk diketahui umum. Sejarawan melakukan penyusunan kisah sejarah sesuai dengan norma-norma dalam disiplin ilmu sejarah. Diantaranya yang penting adalah harus kronologis. Disamping itu harus diupayakan seobjektif mungkin.

Dalam menulis sejarah berarti seorang sejarawan merekonstruksi sumber-sumber sejarah yang telah ditemukannya menjadi suatu cerita sejarah. Kemampuan menulis merupakan syarat yang penting bagi seorang sejarawan. Ia harus mampu berimajinasi dalam menyusun cerita sejarah. Kemampuan berimajinasi dalam menulis menunjukan bahwa menulis sejarah mengandung unsur seni. Bahkan apabila tulisan sejarah itu mampu mengajak pembacanya ikut menerawang kemasa silam dapat mengandung kesan berekreasi kemasa lampau.
Bentuk-bentuk historiografi antara lain dapat berupa: Narasi yang isinya lebih banyak bercerita sesuai dengan apa yang diinformasikan oleh sumber sejarah. Deskriptif yang isinya lebih detail dan kompleks dibandingkan dengan narasi. Dan Analistis, yang isinya lebih banyak berorientasi pada penelaahan masalah. Sehingga tidak sekedar bercerita tetapi banyak menjawab pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang mendalam dengan tinjauan berbagai aspek.

Penulisan yang baik adalah gabungan antar unsur naratif, deskriptif dan analitis. Bentuk gabungan ini akan menampilkan unsur cerita, detail sumber dan analisa terhadap peristiwa sejarah.

Bentuk-bentuk penelitian

Dilihat dari teknik pengumpulan data, penelitian sejarah dibagi dalam dua bentuk, yaitu penelitian Lapangan dan penelitian kepustakaan.

1. Penelitian Lapangan

Dalam melakukan penelitian lapangan seorang sejarawan datang ketempat terjadinya peristiwa sejarah atau tempat ditemukannya peninggalan-peninggalan sejarah (situs). Bila peninggalan tersebut telah disimpan di museum, maka penelitian dilakukan di museum. Dan apabila benda-benda peninggalan itu masih terpendam didalam tanah, maka sejarawan harus melakukan penggalian atau ekskavasi. Jika seorang sejarawan memerlukan keterangan langsung dari pelaku atau saksi sejarah yang masih hidup sebagai sumber lisan maka bisa dilakukan melalui metode wawancara (interview)

2. Penelitian kepustakaan

Penelitian kepustakaan disebut juga dengan penelitian dokumenter. Dalam melakukan penelitian dokumenter, seorang peneliti memfokuskan perhatiannya untuk memperoleh data-data tertulis yang disimpan di museum atau perpustakaan. Untuk mendapatkan data dan informasi yang benar dan akurat, peneliti dapat melakukan studi komparatif, yaitu membandingkan sumber yang satu dengan sumber yang lainnya yang berkenaan dengan suatu hal.

PERKEMBANGAN PENULISAN SEJARAH INDONESIA

2010-09-28T17:09:00.001-07:00

PERKEMBANGAN PENULISAN SEJARAH INDONESIA
Penulisan sejarah (historiografi) di Indonesia umumnya digolongkan kedalam tiga tahapan perkembangan yaitu historiografi tradisional, historiografi kolonial, dan historiografi modern Indonesia. Dan setiap historiografi tersebut masing-masing memililiki ciri-ciri yang berbeda dan jenis yang dihasilkanpun berbeda.

Historiografi Tradisional
Historiografi tradisional adalah tradisi penulisan sejarah yang berlaku pada masa setelah masyarakat Indonesia mengenal tulisan, baik pada Zaman Hindu-Budha maupun pada Zaman Islam. Ada pada abad 4 M sampai abad 17 M.
Hasil tulisan sejarah dari masa ini sering disebut sebagai naskah.
Contoh Historiografi tradisional:
Babad Tanah Jawi, Babad Kraton, Babad Diponegoro, Hikayat Hang Tuah, Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai, Hikayat Silsilah Raja Perak, Hikayat Tanah Hitu, Kronik Banjarmasin, dsb.

Adapun ciri-ciri historiografi tradisional yaitu:
• Penulisannya bersifat istana sentris yaitu berpusat pada keinginan dan kepentingan raja. Berisi masalah-masalah pemerintahan dari raja-raja yang berkuasa. Menyangkut raja dan kehidupan istana.
• Memiliki subjektifitas yang tinggi sebab penulis hanya mencatat peristiwa penting di kerajaan dan permintaan sang raja.
• Bersifat melegitimasi (melegalkan/mensahkan) suatu kekuasaan sehingga seringkali anakronitis (tidak cocok)
• Kebanyakan karya-karya tersebut kuat dalam genealogi (silsilah) tetapi lemah dalam hal kronologi dan detil-detil biografis.
• Pada umumnya tidak disusun secara ilmiah tetapi sering kali data-datanya bercampur dengan unsur mitos dan realitas (penuh dengan unsur mitos).
• Sumber-sumber datanya sulit untuk ditelusuri kembali bahkan terkadang mustahil untuk dibuktikan.
• Dipengaruhi oleh faktor budaya masyarakat dimana naskah tersebut ditulis sehingga merupakan hasil kebudayaan suatu masyarakat.
• Cenderung menampilkan unsur politik semata untuk menujukkan kejayaan dan kekuasaan sang raja.

Banyak sejarawan yang awalnya sampai tahun 1960-an tidak mau menggunakan naskah-naskah tersebut sebagai sumber atau referensi karya ilmiah. Akan tetapi, pada perkembangannya karena melalui berbagai penelitian membuktikan bahwa bayak hal yang ditulis dalam naskah tradisional tersebut dapat terungkap pula dalam sumber-sumber sejarah yang lain maka mereka mulai menganggap bahwa naskah/ historiografi tradisional tersebut dapat pula dijadikan sumber atau acuan sejarah.

Historiografi Kolonial
Ada pada abad 17-abad 20 M.
Historiografi kolonial merupakan historiografi warisan kolonial dan penulisannya digunakan untuk kepentingan penjajah.
Ciri-cirinya:
- Tujuannya untuk memperkuat kekuasaan mereka di Indonesia. Jadi disusun untuk membenarkan penguasaan bangsa mereka terhadap bangsa pribumi (Indonesia). Sehingga untuk kepentingan tersebut mereka melupakan pertimbangan ilmiah.
- Selain itu semuanya didominasi untuk tindakan dan politik kolonial.
- Historiografi kolonial hanya mengungkapkan mengenai orang-orang Belanda dan peristiwa di negeri Belanda serta mengagung-agungkan peran orang Belanda sedangkan orang-orang Indonesia hanya dijadikan sebagai objek.
- Historiografi kolonial memandang peristiwa menggunakan sudut pandang kolonial. Sifat historiografi kolonial eropasentris.
- Ditujukan untuk melemahkan semanangat para pejuang atau rakyat Indonesia.

Seperti contohya: Orang Belanda menyebut ”pemberontakan” bagi setiap perlawanan yang dilakukan oleh daerah untuk melawan kekuasaan Belanda/ kekuasaan asing yang menduduki tanah airnya. Oleh Belanda itu dianggap sebagai ”perlawanan terhadap kekuasaannya yang sah sebagai pemilik Indonesia”. Seperti Perlawanan yang dilakukan oleh Diponegoro, Belanda menganggap itu sebagai ”Pemberontakan Diponegoro”.

Telah ada upaya untuk melakukan kritik terhadap beberapa tulisan orang Belanda seperti tulisan Geschiedenis van Nederlandsche-Indie (Sejarah Hindia Belanda) oleh Stapel yang dikritik J.C van Leur. Salah satu ungkapannya”jangan melihat kehidupan masyarakat hanya dari atas geladak kapal saja”, artinya jangan menuliskan masyarakat Hindia hanya dari sudut penguasa saja dengan mengabaikan sumber-sumber pribumi sehingga peranan pribumi tidak nampak sementara yang ada hanyalah aktivitas bangsa Belanda di Hindia.
Tetapi justru pendapat Stapel yang tenar di kalangan masyarakat Indonesia, salah satu pendapatnya yang masih dipercaya dan melekat dalam benak sebagian besar masyarakat Indonesia adalah bahwa bangsa Indonesia telah dijajah Belanda selama 350 tahun (1595-1545). Hal ini berarti bahwa bangsa Indonesia dijajah sejak tahun 1595 sewaktu Cornelis de Houtman berangkat dari negeri Belanda untuk mencari pulau penghasil rempah-rempah di dunia Timur. Dia sampai di Indonesia tahun 1596. Indonesia masih mengalami kekuasaan VOC (1602-1619), Inggris (1811-1816), Van den Bosh (1816-1830), Penghapusan Tanam Paksa(1830-1870), Liberalisme (1870-1900), Politik Etis (1900-1922), Sistem Administrasi Belanda (1922-1942), Jepang (1942-1945).

Historiografi Modern Indonesia/ historiografi nasional
Ada pada abad 20 M- sekarang. Setelah kemerdekaan bangsa Indonesia maka masalah sejarah nasional mendapat perhatian yang relatif besar terutama untuk kepentingan pembelajaran di sekolah sekaligus untuk sarana pewarisan nilai-nilai perjuangan serta jati diri bangsa Indonesia.
Ditandai dengan:
- Mulai muncul gerakan Indonesianisasi dalam berbagai bidang sehingga istilah-istilah asing khususnya istilah Belanda mulai diindonesiakan selain itu buku-buku berbahasa Belanda sebagian mulai diterjemahkan ke dalam bahasa Indonesia.
- Mulai Penulisan sejarah Indonesia yang berdasarkan pada kepentingan dan kebutuhan bangsa dan negara Indonesia dengan sudut pandang nasional.
- Orang-orang dan bangsa Indonesialah yang menjadi subjek/pembuat sejarah, mereka tidak lagi hanya sebagai objek seperti pada historiografi kolonial.
- Penulisan buku sejarah Indonesia yang baru awalnya hanya sekedar menukar posisi antara tokoh Belanda dan tokoh Indonesia.
Jika awalnya tokoh Belanda sebagai pahlawan sementara orang pribumi sebagai penjahat, maka dengan adanya Indonesianisasi maka kedudukannya terbalik dimana orang Indonesia sebagai pahlawan dan orang Belanda sebagai penjahat tetapi alur ceritanya tetap sama.

Keadaaan yang demikian membuat para sejarawan dan pengamat sejarah terdorong untuk mengadakan ”Kongres Sejarah Nasional” yang pertama yaitu pada tahun 1957. Pada kongres kedua namanya diubah menjadi ”Seminar Nasional Sejarah”, membicarakan mengenai rencana untuk pembuatan sebuah buku sejarah nasional baru dengan harapan dapat dijadikan semacam buku referensi.

Oleh karena itu penulisan sejarah yang seharusnya adalah:
1. Sebuah penulisan yang tidak sekedar mengubah pendekatan dari eropasentris menjadi indonesiasentris, tetapi juga menampilkan hal-hal baru yang sebelumnya belum sempat terungkap.
2. Penulisan sejarah dengan cara yang konvensional (yang hanya mengandalkan naskah sebagai sumber sejarah) yang bersifat naratif, deskriptif, kedaerahan, serta tema-tema politik dan penguasa diganti dengan cara penulisan sejarah yang kritis (struktural analitis)
3. Menggunakan pendekatan multidimensional.
Caranya yaitu dengan menggunakan teori-teori ilmu sosial untuk menjelaskan kejadiaan sejarah sesuai dengan dimensinya dengan menggunakan sumber-sumber yang lebih beragam daripada masa sebelumnya.
4. Mengungkapkan dinamika masyarakat Indonesia dari berbagai aspek kehidupan yang kemudian dapat dijadikan bahan kajian untuk memperkaya penulisan sejarah Indonesia.
Sebagai contoh:
Tulisan berjudul ”Pemberontakan Petani di Banten 1888” oleh Sartono Kartodirdjo, seorang sejarawan Indonesia pertama yang menggunakan metode multidimensional dalam penulisannya.

Penulisan sejarah Indonesia modern bertujuan untuk melakukan perbaikan dengan menggantiklan beberapa hal seperti:
• Adanya pandangan religio-magis serta kosmologis seperti tercermin dalam babad atau hikayat diganti dengan pandangan empiris-ilmiah.
• Adanya pandangan etnosentrisme diganti dengan pandangan nationsentris.
• Adanya pandangan sejarah kolonial-elitis diganti dengan sejarah bangsa Indonesia secara keseluruhan yang mencakup berbagai lapisan sosial.

Ucapan Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri

2010-09-09T01:55:00.000-07:00

Ucapan Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri

1. Dia Pergi dengan bersahaja. Meninggalkan berkah & penampunan. Meninngalkan jejak pahala. Membawa mimpi surga ! SELAMAT IDUL FITRI, mohon maaf lahir & batin

2. Satu yang pasti dalam hidup: kita akan kembali kepada-Nya. Mumpung masih hidup Ayo sirahturahmi di hari yang fitri. SELAMAT IDUL FITRI, mohon maaf lahir & batin.

3. Masa aktif Hidup anda hampir berakhir, saldo dosa anda makin meningkat, di hari yang fitri ini raih kesempatan untuk meningkatkan saldo Iman. Isi ulang dengan sirahturahmi. SELAMAT IDUL FITRI, mohon maaf lahir & batin

4. Terselip khilaf dalam candaku. Tergores luka dalam tawaku, terbelit pilu dalam tingkahku, tersinggung rasa dalam bicaraku. Hari kemenangan telah tiba, moga segala dosa & kesalahan kita terampuni. Mari bersama kita bersihkan dihari yang fitri. SELAMAT IDUL FITRI, mohon maaf lahir & batin

5. Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar
Takbir mulai bergema, menyeruak ke angkasa menembus gelapnya malamSeiring hati bahagia, kembali pada fitrahSelamat idul fitri 1431 H, mohon maaf lahir dan batin

6. Takbir, tahmid, tahlil tlah berkumandang. Memecah keheningan malam, mengantar rasa syukur padaNya. Esok pagi menyambut hari yang fitri, selamat hari lebaran 1431 H taqaballahu mina wa minkum, mohon maaf lahir dan batin

7. Kegembiraan tlah bergema memecah keheningan. Kalimat-kalimat suci pertanda bahagia, umat islam menyambut kemenangan. Melukar belenggu dosa, melepas ikatan dengki, menebar cinta serta maaf dan memaafkan. Selamat idul fitri 1431 H, taqaballahu mina wa minkum

8. Tiada gembira yang menggelora, tiada senang yang mengangkasa, selain kita telah kembali pada fitrah dan ampunanNya. Taqaballahu mina wa minkum, selamat idul fitri 1431 H, minal aidzin wal faizin, mohon maaf lahir dan batin

Silahkan kalau ada yang mau menambahkan!!!!

Islam on Indonesia

2010-03-12T04:25:00.000-08:00

Peta Pergerakan Islam di Indonesia Abad 21
ditulis oleh Bang One

Dalam usaha menemukan jati dirinya, ditubuh umat islam di indonesia telah tumbuh dan berkembang beragam pergerakan islam sebagai usaha melakukan perubahan dan menentukan masa depannya. Perbedaan organisasi ataupun pergerakan islam berubah dari sekedar perbedaan madzab ataupun furu’iyah dalam ibadah menjadi perbedaan pada metode ataupun orientasinya. Dengan menelaah ulang konteks kesejarahan pergerakan islam Indonesia pada awal abad 20, dapat dikatagorikan dalam dua kelompok besar yaitu kelompok skeptif dan progresif.

Dari kacamata penulis kelompok skeptif adalah kelompok yang enggan melakukan perubahan sosial dan keagamaan, tidak melakukan transformatif ataupun ijtihad, dan memegang kuat tradisi budaya yang dalam hal ini bisa dinisbatkan pada Organisasi Islam yang mencerminkan akar rumput tradisi masyarakat Indonesia yaitu Nahdhlatul Ulama. Sedangkan disisi yang lain kelompok progresif diwakili kelompok yang menghendaki perubahan dalam tataran sosial, politik, pendidikan ataupun ijtihad keagamaan yang hal ini bisa diwakili Muhammadiyah, Persis, Syarikat Islam dan Al Irsyad. Walaupun terdiri atas beragam organisasi namun bisa dikatakan secara garis besar platform maupun ketokohan keempat organisasi tersebut masih saling beririsan secara signifikan.

Namun dipenghujung abad 20 dan memasuki abad 21, pengaruh globalisasi juga memberikan warna tersendiri pada dinamika organisasi dan pergerakan islam di Indonesia. Organisasi islam yang telah mapan secara kultural, struktural maupun institusional yaitu Nahdhlatul Ulama dan Muhammadiyah harus siap bersaing dengan dinamika pergerakan islam yang semakin berkembang dengan tumbuhnya pergerakan islam yang mengadopsi atapun menyatakan sebagai bagian ataupun cabang dari organisasi islam dari luar Indonesia. Diantaranya Hizbut Tahrir, Salafiyah, Jamaah Tabligh, Tarbiyah, ataupun gerakan bawah tanah Jamaah Jihad walaupun kurang menunjukkan eksistensinya dipermukaan.

Interaksi umat islam Indonesia dengan wacana keagamaan dan dinamikanya tidak mungkin dipisahkan dengan dinamika di luar negeri khususnya Timur Tengah. Karena bagaimanapun organisasi islam yang telah mapan seperti Nahdhlatul Ulama maupun Muhammadiyah pun terinspirasi dan bisa dikatakan mengadopsi perkembangan wacana keagamaan yang berkembang disana. Dalam tubuh Nahdhlatul Ulama sendiri pengaruh gerakan-gerakan Tarekat yang mengadopsi dari luar negeriseperti Naqsabandiyah dan Tijaniyah yang berpusat dan berkembang di Syiriah dan Mesir cukup signifikan, begitu pula pergerakan islam Al-Haramain dengan tokohnya Syaikh Muhammad Maliki yang berkembang di Nejd menjadi rujukan utama para ulama di Nahdhliyin. Sedangkan Muhammadiyah pada awal-awal berdirinya tidak terlepas mengadopsi ide-ide pembaharuan islam moderat yang dipelopori Syaikh Muhammad Abduh, Rasyid Ridha, Muhammad Abdul Wahab, hingga Jamaludin Al-Afghani ataupun Muhammad Iqbal. Dan dari perkembangannya Muhammadiyah sendiri sebenarnya telah cukup berkembang dan berpengaruh di negara-negara Jiran seperti Malaysia dan Singapura.

Karena itu terlalu dipaksakan apabila terkesan adanya pemisahan antara pergerakan islam Nasional dan Transnasional, dengan memaksakan pandangan yang berhak hidup dan berkembang di Indonesia dan dapat diterimat umat islam Indonesia adalah Ormas islam Asli Indonesia, sedangkan yang lainnya yang berbau TransNasional tidak layak untuk mengembangkan keorganisasian ataupun pengaruhnya di Indonesia. Apalagi Negara ini memberikan sepenuhnya hak kemerdekaan dalam berorganisasi dan menyampaikan pendapat bagi siapapun dan kelompok manapun selama masih dalam batas-batas mengakui Negara Kesatuan Indonesia dan tidak melakukan tindakan-tindakan destruktif yang merusak kepentingan nasional serta kehidupan masyarakatnya.

Selanjutnya bagaimana perkembangan Ormas-ormas ataupun pergerakan islam di Indonesia saat ini. Dalam kacamata penulis, untuk mengklasifikasikan peta pergerakan islam tidak ada salahnya mengadopsi pemetaan dinamika pergerakan islam berdasarkan model teori-teori perubahan sosial yang bersifat kemasyrakatan atau dalam paradigma sosiologi. Teori paradigma perubahan sosial dicetuskan pertama kali oleh seorang sosiolog pendidikan Brasil Paulo Freire pada era 70-an, yang kemudian berkembang dalam tataran peta paradigma sosiologi ideologis yang dikembangkan Burnell Morgan diera 80-an. Dari para analis sosiologi ini madzab perubahan sosial akan memetakan bagaimana karakter secara ideologis, metode serta sasaran yang hendak diwujudkan oleh kelompok-kelompok masyarakat yang menghendaki perubahan sosial, yang kemudian bisa dibagi kedalam 3 madzab.

Madzab pertama adalah perubahan pasif dan dominatif. Kerangka pola fikir dalam golongan ini adalah lebih dekat dengan pola gerakan salafiyah dalam pergerakan islam. Sedangkan dalam tataran metode kesadaran sosial disebut dengan kesadaran magis. Penganut madzab ini lebih dekat dengan kelompok islam yang hanya menyandarkan orientasi gerak dibidang ubudiyah dan ansih dengan dinamika politik dan sosial. Dalam pandangan ini perubahan sosial tidak mampu mengetahui hubungan atau kaitan antara satu faktor dengan faktor lainnya untuk melakukan perubahan sosial secara humanis maupun struktural untuk mewujudkan perubahan tatanan sosial secara global.

Organisasi islam akar rumput seperti Nahdhlatul Ulama dan kalangan tradisional serta derivatnya cukup dominan mewakili madzab ini. Karena kerangka orientasi model organisasi seperti ini adalah lebih pada upaya mempertahankan dominasi kultur dan tradisi yang telah mapan dan dianut masyarakat Indonesia, begitu pula dalam keagamaan. Sedangkan pengembangan lembaga politik, sosial ataupun pendidikan dalam naungan Ormas ini lebih pada figuritas dan kepunyaan pribadi ketimbang kekuatan usaha Ormasnya. Sedangkan perubahan sosial yang dikehendaki masih belum kelihatan, baik secara falsafah maupun konsepnya sehingga perubahan sosial dalam pandangan ini mengikuti perubahan yang terjadi berdasarkan faktor-faktor eksternal, natural ataupun magical.

Madzab ini juga sangat dominan dianut oleh kelompok Salafiyah atau Wahabiyah yang mengadopsi madzab keagamaan dari Arab Saudi, karena pola kemasyarakatan yang pasif dan masih didominasi Kerajaan dalam politik, sehingga tidak menuntut adanya dinamika sosial politik. Selain itu Jamaah Tabligh yang begitu tradisional dalam penerapan faham keagamaan juga secara dominan mengikuti cara pandang ini.

Madzab kedua adalah perubahan Reformatif. Dalam pandangan yang kedua ini perubahan sosial lebih dititik beratkan pada perubahan humanis, yaitu untuk membangun kesadaran individu dalam aspek manusiawi sebagai akar dari perubahan sosial yang hendak diwujudkan, sehingga juga disebut dengan perubahan sosial dengan kesadaran naif. Man power development menjadi sesuatu yang diharapkan untuk mewujudkan perubahan. Sedangkan secara struktural, mereka akan mengikuti pola dan struktur yang sudah ada dan dianggap sebagai sesuatu yang sudah baik, mapan dan benar dan akan berubah sesuai dengan karakter perubahan manusianya. Sehingga pandangan ini akan mengusahakan perubahan sosial secara reformatif.

Dalam pandangan madzab ini model pergerakan islam modern seperti Muhammadiyah dan derivatnya cukup mewakili. Dengan program pendidikan dan amal islam yang terkelolah dengan baik dan dikembangkan secara progressif, organisasi ini berusaha untuk meningkatkan kesadaran dan kemampuan masyarakat dalam usahanya merealisasikan perubahan kehidupan sosial, ekomnomi, pendidikan, politik yang lebih baik. Ini dibuktikan dengan kontribusi besar para tokohnya dalam usahanya ikut serta menentukan pondasi negara ini walaupun dalam tataran nasionalisme. Sebut saja Ki Bagus Hadi Kusumo dan Kasman Singodimejo merupakan perwakilan dari kelompok islam modern, yang menjadi founding father Indonesia, ataupun Panglima besar Jenderal Soedirman yang menjadi pelopor pendirian dan pemimpin TNI, serta tokoh-tokohnya yang berhasil melakukan reformasi bidang pendidikan di negara ini.

Adapun pergerakan islam lain yang juga condong menggunakan pendekatan paradigma perubahan perubahan sosial model ini adalah pergerakan islam Tarbiyah. Gerakan ini memiliki orientasi utama untuk membangun konsep dan struktur berdasarkan islam dalam semua bidang dengan jargonnya AlIslam huwal Hal dan dengan cakupan global, yang mereka sebut dengan Ustadziatul ‘Alam. Namun dalam tataran geraknya mereka menggunakan tahapan-tahapan perubahan yang disebut dengan Mihwar. Sehingga gerakan ini cenderung untuk melakukan perubahan secara humanis dan reformatif islam.

Pergerakan islam ini cukup menarik untuk dicermati karena pengaruhnya yang berkembang secara signifikan. Dalam tatanan reformasi politik pergerakan ini membangun sayap politiknya melalui Partai Keadilan yang kemudian berubah menjadi Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, yang sekarang memiliki kemampuan politik yang cukup signifikan sebagai kekuatan partai islam terbesar. Begitu pula dalam pengembangan amal islam keagamaan, pendidikan, kesehatan dan bidang sosial lainnya dengan pendirian Pesantren, Sekolah Islam, Lembaga Sosial dan Zakat serta berbagai misi sosial dan kesehatan ataupun budaya yang cukup mewarnai. Dalam pembangunan SDM, pergerakan islam ini juga cukup dominan memberikan warna keislaman di lembaga-lembaga pusat pendidikan tinggi serta lembaga riset IPTEK nasional.

Sedangkan Madzab ketiga adalah perubahan transformatif. Dalam pandangan ini perubahan sosial dibangun dengan kesadaran kritis revolusioner. Dalam paradigma kesadaran kritis, inti permasalahan dan perubahan sosial adalah pada struktural dalam sistem tatanan sosial, politik, ekonomi, budaya dan bidang lainnya. Sehingga perubahan sosial dapat diwujudkan melalui dialektika thesa dan antithesa untuk membangun struktur yang secara fundamen baru dan terlepas dari struktur yang ada yang dianggap rusak dan penyebab ketidakadilan.

Untuk saat ini meskipun masih belum signifikan pengaruhnya tetapi pergerakan islam revolusioner seperti Jamaah Jihad yang dalam hal ini bisa terwakili oleh Majelis Mujahidin dan Ansharuttauhid bisa mewakili cara pandang perubahan sosial dalam paradigma ini. Jika kita tengok dalam sejarah panjang pergerakan islam nasional, pergerakan islam dengan model ini sebenarnya memiliki akar sejarah yang cukup signifikan di Indonesia. Dengan latar belakang Gerakan Darul Islam DI/TII yang didirikan KartoSuwiryo pada tahun 1947, yang mampu memberikan perlawanan dengan pemberontakan yang terbesar dan terlama dalam masa-masa revolusi. Selain di sebagian Jawa Tengah dan Jawa Barat, gerakan ini juga berkembang derivatnya dengan NII yang berkembang di Aceh, Sulawesi Selatan dan Tenggara serta Kalimantan Selatan, sehingga pemberontakan untuk mendirikan Negara Islam untuk melawan pemerintahan RI dan menggantikan bentuk Negara nasionalis NKRI ini mampu bertahan tidak kurang dari 15 tahun.

Dalam bentuk perlawanan yang lebih dapat dipandang vandalisme saat ini, sisa-sisa NII yang mengatas namakan JI ataupun Al-Qaedah Indonesia, dengan pengaruh organisasi Jihad luar negeri mereka seolah-olah mendapatkan ruh baru. Dengan mengadopsi pemikiran fundamentalisme ideologis Jamaah Islamiyah yang berkembang di Mesir yang kemudian melakukan tranformasi kedalam jaringan Al-Qaedah, sempalan pergerakan organisasi jihad internasional ini ingin menunjukkan eksistensinya dengan berbagai serangan teror terhadap kepentingan-kepentingan asing di negeri ini. Selain itu dalam pandangan mereka pemerintahan yang tidak berdasarkan ideologis dan hukum islam adalah wajib dihancurkan dan diperangi.

Selain model revolusi dengan kekerasan, pergerakan islam lain yang tidak menggunakan jalur kekerasan fisik tetapi dengan revolusi pemikiran yang bisa dikatagorikan menganut paradigma perubahan transformatif revolusioner ini adalah Hizbut Tahrir. Sebagai pergerakan islam yang mengklaim sebagai partai politik internasional yang berpusat di Yordania dan diisukan hijrah ke Inggris sebagai markas pusatnya ini menunjukkan geliatnya di negara-negara demokratis Eropa, sebagian Asia Tengah serta Indonesia. Wacana dan doktrin revolusi pemikiran pergerakan islam ini dibangun dengan diskusi-diskusi, buku, booklet, ataupun selebaran-selebaran dialogis untuk memberikan pengaruh dan menanamkan keyakinannya kepada umat islam untuk mengikuti pola pikir yang mereka anut, terutama dari golongan terdidik.

Metode revolusioner dalam mewujudkan perubahan sosial yang ditempuh Hizbut Tahrir dapat dikatagorikan dalam dua jalan utama. Jalan pertama untuk melakukan revolusi struktural adalah dengan merebut kepemimpinan yang mereka sebut dengan Thulabun Nusroh, atau pencarian perlindungan. Dengan jalan lobi-lobi dan diskusi politik dengan pemimpin-pemimpin negara, masyarakat ataupun keagamaan mereka berusaha memberikan pengaruh pemikiran, sehingga diantara para pemimpin itu bersedia untuk menempuh jalan dan cara pandang mereka untuk bersama-sama mereka mewujudkan terbentuknya daulah islam Khilafah Islamiyah dan tegaknya syariat islam. Sedangkan jalan yang kedua adalah dengan Ash-Shira’ ul-Fikra untuk melakukan revolusi sosial, yaitu dengan memberikan pengaruh pemikiran secara luas kepada masyarakat bawah dengan cara menghancurkan wibawa pemerintahan, dan mempertontonkan kekurangan, kegagalan ataupun kebobrokan-kebobrokan kepemimpinan negara serta menganggap seluruh pemerintahan negeri-negeri islam saat ini adalah Darul Kufr alias dianggap Negara kafir. Hal tersebut bertujuan untuk menghilangkan kepercayaan masyarakat pada pemimpin-pemimpin pemerintahan terutama negeri-negeri islam, sehingga pada akhirnya akan mampu menggerakkan masyarakat untuk bersedia bergerak bersama HT melakukan revolusi terhadap rezim yang berkuasa.

Dari ketiga klasifikasi madzab perubahan sosial ini tidak berdasarkan nilai-nilai dogmatis keagamaan bahwasanya madzab yang yang satu lebih benar ketimbang madzab lainnya, namun lebih berdasarkan metode dan mekanisme transfer nilai yang ditawarkan dan dikembangkan masing-masing madzab. Madzab-madzab ini akan menentukan bagaimana platform pergerakan islam, kepemimpinan, serta pola fikir yang dianut pengikutnya yang menjadi nilai idealisme yang diperjuangkan untuk melakukan perubahan sosial.

Demikian mungkin sedikit gambaran peta pergerakan islam di Indonesia yang ada dari sudut pandang kacamata penulis, yang pasti silahkan pilih gerbong yang sesuai dengan hati nurani, fastabiqul khairat dan marilah berusaha introspeksi untuk senantiasa melakukan perbaikan dalam diri kita pribadi, dan menjauhkan diri dari keyakinan dan pemikiran destruktif yang justru menjauhkan islam menuju kebangkitannya, dan menghilangkan jati dirinya sebagai Rahmatan lil ‘alamin. Adapun jika ada kesalahan yang tidak sesuai dengan fakta dan keyakinan yang dianut masing-masing pergerakan islam yang ada, penulis minta maaf dan siap untuk mengkoreksi dan merevisi tulisan singkat ini.

Karbala When Skies Wept Blood

2010-02-17T03:43:00.000-08:00

Tragedi Karbala 10 Muharram 61 H

Pada hari Asyura, 10 Muharram 61 H, terjadilah Tragedi Karbala.
Peristiwa Karbala yang menimpa Al-Husein bin Ali bin Abi Thalib (sa)
jauh sebelumnya telah diberitakan oleh malaikat Jibril kepada
Rasulullah saw. Ummu Salamah isteri tercinta Rasulullah saw
menuturkan: Ketika hendak tidur Rasulullah saw gelisah, ia berbaring
kemudian bangun, berbaring dan bangun lagi. Aku bertanya kepadanya:
Mengapa engkau gelisah ya Rasulallah? Rasulullah saw menjawab: “Baru
saja Jibril datang kepadaku memberitakan bahwa Al-Husein akan terbunuh
di Karbala. Ia membawa tanah ini dan simpanlah tanah ini. Jika tanah
ini kelak telah berubah warna menjadi merah pertanda Al-Husein telah
terbunuh.” Ummu Salamah menyimpan tanah itu.

Al-Husein (sa) mengajak keluarganya dan sahabat-sahabat Nabi saw yang
masih hidup saat itu untuk bergabung bersamanya. Sebelum meninggalkan
kota Madinah, Al-Husein (sa) pergi berziarah ke pusara kakeknya
Rasulullah saw. Di kubur Kakeknya ia membaca doa dan menangis hingga
larut malam dan tertidur. Dalam tidurnya ia mimpi Rasulullah saw
datang kepadanya, memeluknya dan mencium keningnya. Dalam mimpinya
Rasulullah saw berpesan: “Wahai Husein, ayahmu, ibumu dan kakakmu
menyampaikan salam padamu, mereka rindu kepadamu ingin segera berjumpa
denganmu. Wahai Husein, tidak lama lagi kamu akan menyusulku dengan
kesyahidanmu.” Lalu Al-Husein terbangun.

Di kubur kakeknya Al-Husein berjanji dan bertekah untuk menegakkan
keadilan dan kebenaran, menyampaikan Islam sebagaimana yang
dikehendaki oleh Allah dan Rasul-Nya. Kemudian Ia mendatangi
keluarganya dan mengajak sebagian sahabat-sahabat Nabi saw yang masih
hidup saat itu untuk bergabung bersamanya.

Ketika akan meninggalkan kota Madinah menuju ke Irak, Al-Husein pamet
kepada Ummu Salamah, ia menangis dan mengantarkannya dengan linangan
air mata, ia terkenang saat bersama Rasulullah saw dan teringat akan
pesan yang disampaikan kepadanya.

Kini Al-Husein dan rombongannya berangkat menuju Irak. Karena lelahnya
perjalanan yang cukup jauh, Al-Husein dan rombongan yang tidak lebih
dari 73 orang berhenti di padang Karbala. Rombongan Al-Husein (sa)
terdiri dari keluarganya dan sebagian sahabat-sahabat Nabi saw. Mereka
memancangkan kemah-kemah di padang Karbala untuk berteduh dari
sengatan panas matahari dan istirahat karena lelahnya perjalanan yang
cukup jauh.

Deru suara kuda terdengar dari kejauhan. Semakin lama suara itu
semakin jelas bahwa suara itu adalah suara deru kuda pasukan Ibnu
Ziyad yang jumlahnya ribuan. Rombongan Al-Husein yang jumlahnya tidak
lebih dari 73 orang terdiri dari: anak-anak kecil dan wanita dari
keluarganya, dan sebagian sahabat-sahabat Nabi saw. Mereka harus
berhadapan dengan ribuan pasukan Ibnu Ziyad gubernur pilihan Yazid bin
Muawiyah.

Karena jauhnya perjalanan Al-Husein dan rombongannya kehabisan bekal.
Mereka dalam keadaan haus dan lapar. Sebagian dari mereka berusaha
mengambil air dari sungai Efrat, tapi mereka dihadang oleh pasukan
Ibnu Ziyah. Mereka tetap berusaha keras mengambil air untuk
dipersembahkan kepada Al-Husein dan keluarganya serta rombongan yang
kehausan. Tapi mereka gagal karena diserang oleh anak-anak panah
pasukan Ibnu Ziyah, dan mereka berguguran menjadi syuhada’.

10 Muharram 61 H, pasukan Ibnu Ziyad mulai melakukan serangan pada
rombongan Al-Husein yang dalam keadaan haus dan lapar. Salah seorang
pasukan melancarkan anak panah pada leher anak Al-Husein yang masih
bayi dan berada dalam pangkuan ibunya, sehingga mengalirlah darah dari
lehernya dan meninggallah bayi yang tak berdosa itu.

Pada sore hari 10 Muharram 61 H, pasukan Al-Husein banyak yang
berguguran. Sehingga Al-Husein (sa) tinggallah seorang diri dan
beberapa anak-anak dan wanita. Dalam keadaan haus dan lapar di depan
pasukan Ibnu Ziyad , Al-Husein (sa) berkata: “Bukalah hati nurani
kalian, bukankah aku adalah putera Fatimah dan cucu Rasulullah saw.
Pandanglah aku baik-baik, bukankah baju yang aku pakai adalah baju
Rasululah saw.”

Tapi sayang seribu sayang karena emeng-emeng hadiah jabatan dan materi
dari Ibnu Ziyah dan Yazid bin Muawiyah, kecuali Al-Hurr pasukan Ibnu
Ziyad tidak memperdulikan ajakan Al-Husein (sa), mereka menyerang Al-
Husein yang tinggal seorang diri. Serangan itu disaksikan oleh Zainab
(adiknya), Syaherbanu (isterinya), Ali bin Husein (puteranya), dan
rombongan yang masih hidup yang terdiri dari wanita dan anak-anak.
Pasukan Ibnu Ziyad melancarkan anak-anak panah pada tubuh Al-Husein,
dan darah mengalir dari tubuhnya yang sudah lemah. Akhirnya Al-Husein
terjatuh di tengah-tengah mayat para syuhada’ dari pasukannya.

Melihat Al-Husein terjatuh dan tak berdaya, Syimir dari pasukan Ibnu
Ziyah turun dari kudanya, menginjak-injakkan kakinya ke dada Al-
Husein, lalu menduduki dadanya dan menghunus pedang, kemudian
menyembelih leher Al-Husein yang dalam kehausan, sehingga terputuslah
lehernya dari tubuhnya. Menyaksikan peristiwa yang tragis ini Zainab
dan isterinya serta anak-anak kecil menangis dan menjerit tragis.
Tidak hanya itu kekejaman Syimir, ia melemparkan kepala Al-Husein yang
berlumuran ke kemah Zainab. Semakin histeris tangisan Zainab dan
isterinya menyaksikan kepala Al-Husein yang berlumuran darah berada di
dekatnya.

Zainab menangis dan menjerit, jeritannya memecah suasana duka. Ia
merintih sambil berkata: Oh… Husein, dahulu aku menyaksikan kakakku Al-
Hasan meninggal diracun oleh orang terdekatnya, dan kini aku harus
menyaksikan kepergianmu dibantai dan disembelih dalam keadaan haus dan
lapar.
Ya Allah, ya Rasullallah, saksikan semua ini. Al-Husein telah
meninggalkan kami dibantai di Karbala dalam keadaan haus dan lapar.
Dibantai oleh ummatmu yang mengharapkan syafaatmu. Ya Allah, ya
Rasulallah Akankah mereka memperoleh syafaatmu sementara mereka
menghinakan keluargamu, dan membantai Al-Husein yang paling engkau
cintai?

10 Muharram 61 H, bersamaan akan tenggelamnya matahari, mega merah pun
mewarnai kemerahan u*** barat, saat itulah tanah Karbala memerah,
banjiri darah Al-Husein (sa) dan para syuhada’ Karbala. Bumi menangis,
langit dan penghuinya berduka atas kepergian Al-Husein (sa) pejuang
kebenaran dan keadilan.

Dari sebagian sumber riwayat menuturkan bahwa sejak kepergian Al-
Husein dari Madinah Ummu Salamah selalu memperhatikan tanah yang
dititipkan oleh Rasulullah saw, saat Al-Husein terbunuh tanah itu
berubah warna menjadi merah, Ummu Salamah menangis, teringat pesan-
pesan Rasulullah saw dan terkenang saat-saat bersamanya.

Kini rombongan Al-Husein (sa) yang masih hidup tinggallah: Zainab dan
isterinya, Ali putra Al-Husein yang sedang sakit, dan sisa
rombongannya yang masih hidup yang terdiri dari anak-anak dan wanita.
Mereka diikat rantai dan digiring dalam keadaan haus dan lapar, dari
karbala menuju kantor gubernur Ibnu Ziyad yang kemudian mereka
digiring ke istana Yazid bin Muawiyah di Damaskus. Dalam keadaan
lemah, lapar dan haus, mereka dirantai dan digiring di sepanjang jalan
kota Kufah. Mereka disaksikan oleh penduduk Kufah yang berbaris di
sepanjang jalan. Mereka menundukkan kepala, malu dengan sorotan mata
yang memandangi mereka.

Kini sisa rombongan Al-Husein digiring ke istana Yazid bin Muawiyah.
Sebagian pasukan membawa kepala Al-Husein untuk dipersembahkan kepada
Yazid. Dengan mempersembahkan kepala Al-Husein dan tawanan wanita dan
anak kecil yang sebagian dari mereka adalah cucu dan keturunan Nabi
saw, mereka berharap mendapatkan imbalan jabatan dan materi
sebagaimana yang telah dijanjikan oleh Yazid bin Muawiyah. Kini tiba
saatnya Yazid, Ibnu Ziyad, para pejabat dan pasukannya berpesta di
istana, merayakan kemenangannya.

Duhai para pejuang kebenaran dan keadilan, hati siapa yang tidak
teriris dan berduka menyaksikan tragedi Karbala?

Duhai para pecinta Rasulullah dan keluarganya, hati siapa yang tidak
merasa sedih dan iba menyaksikan keluarga Nabi saw dirantai dan
digiring di sepanjang kota Kufah
dalam keadaan haus dan lapar lalu dihinakan di istana Yazid bin
Muawiyah?

Duhai kaum muslimin dan ummat Rasulullah saw, peristiwa apalagi dalam
sejarah manusia yang lebih tragis dari peristiwa Karbala?

Duhai orang-orang yang lemah dan tertindas, hati siapa yang tidak
tesentuh dan terbangkitkan oleh semangat darah Al-Husein dan para
syuhada’ Karbala?

Duhai kaum muslimin dan mukminin ummat Rasulullah saw, masih adakah
hati yang keberatan menyampaikan salam dan ziarah kepada Al-Husein
(sa) dan para syuhada’ Karbala?

Mari kaum muslimin, para pecinta kebenaran dan keadilan kita ucapkan
salam:
اَلسَّلامُ عَلَى الْحُسَيْنِ وَعَلى عَلِيِّ بْنِ الْحُسَيْنِ وَعَلى
اَوْلادِ الْحُسَيْنِ وَعَلى اَصْحابِ الْحُسَيْنِ.
Assalâmu ‘alal Husayn wa ‘alâ Aliyibnil Husayn wa ‘alâ awlâdil Husayn
wa ‘alâ ashhâbil Husayn.

Salam pada Al-Husein, salam pada Ali bin Husein, salam pada semua
putera Al-Husein, dan salam pada semua sahabat Al-Husein.

Bagi yang berminat ziarah Asyura yang lengkap dengan tek arabnya dan
doa sesudah ziarah Asyura, silahkan download di bagian File:
http://groups.google.com/group/keluarga-bahagia

Yang berminat Amalan Praktis dan doa-doa pilihan, silahkan klik :
http://shalatdoa.blogspot.com
http://groups.google.com/group/keluarga-bahagia
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shalat-Doa

Yang berminat info situs2 periklanan dan usaha2 online, klik di sini :
http://infor-indo.blogspot.com
http://pengusahaonline.com/?id=Syamsuri

Prison Break Best TV Series in Amerika

2010-02-16T03:24:00.000-08:00

Prison Break
Plot: Due to a political conspiracy an innocent man is sent to death row and his only hope is his brother who makes it his mission to deliberately get himself sent to the same prison in order to break the both of them out from the inside out.

Prison Break adalah serial drama Amerika Serikat yang ditayangkan pertama kali di Fox Broadcasting Company pada tanggal 29 Agustus 2005.

Cerita serial ini berkisah tentang orang yang ditangkap karena kejahatan yang ia tidak lakukannya dan saudara kandungnya membantunya lepas dari hukumannya. Di Indonesia, serial Prison Break sempat diputar di ANTV pada pertengahan 2007 dan kembali ditayangkan oleh RCTI. Serial ini dibuat oleh Paul Scheuring. Produser film ini sekarang Paul Scheuring, Matt Olmstead, Kevin Hooks, Marty Adelstein, Dawn Parouse, Neal Moritz dan Brett Ratner. Musik tema serial ini dibuat oleh Ramin Djawadi, dan dinominasikan untuk Primetime Emmy Award tahun 2006.

Pemain dan Karakter
Pemeran Prison Break Amaury Nolasco, Robert Knepper, Wade Williams, Sarah Wayne Callies, Wentworth Miller bersama produser eksekutif Matt Olmstead.

Berikut ini adalah beberapa karakter utama dalam serial Prison Break. Untuk daftar lengkapnya dapat dilihat di Daftar karakter Prison Break. Dari tokoh-tokoh ini, hanya dua karakter protagonis, Lincoln Burrows dan Michael Scofield, yang muncul di setiap episode selama 4 season.

• Wentworth Miller sebagai Michael Scofield (Season 1–4): Michael adalah adik Lincoln yang bekerja sebagai insinyur sebelum mendedikasikan seluruh waktunya untuk membebaskan Lincoln. Michael membuat rencana matang untuk melarikan diri bersama kakakknya dari penjara Fox River. Satu minggu sebelum produksi dimulai, Miller melakukan audisi untuk peran ini dan membuat Scheuring terkesan; ia ditunjuk untuk memerankan Michael Scofield pada hari berikutnya.

• Dominic Purcell sebagai Lincoln Burrows (Season 1–4): Lincoln dijebak untuk pembunuhan Terence Steadman, adik wakil presiden Amerika kala itu. Purcell terpilih tiga hari sebelum produksi. Purcell melakukan audisi ketika ia masih menjalankan peran sebagai Tommy Ravetto dalam serial North Shore. Sejak berperan dalam serial John Doe, Purcell telah memiliki hubungan baik dengan Fox. Meski demikian, saat ia melakukan audisi untuk episode pertama, Scheuring tidak terkesan karena potongan rambut dan warna kulit Purcell yang gelap. Namun, akting Purcell akhirnya mengantarkan ia mendapatkan peran ini. Purcell tiba di lokasi pada hari pertama syuting dengan kepala plontos, yang mengejutkan Scheuring karena kemiripan antara dua orang pemeran utama serial ini.

• Robin Tunney sebagai Veronica Donovan (Season 1–2): Veronica adalah pengacara yang juga teman masa kecil Michael dan Lincoln yang membantu kakak beradik ini mengungkapkan konspirasi dalam kasus Lincoln.

• Marshall Allman sebagai Lincoln "L. J." Burrows Jr. (Season 1–4): L. J. adalah putra Lincoln yang telah beranjak remaja dan sangat terpengaruh akan hukuman mati yang menimpa ayahnya. Ia terpaksa bersembunyi setelah menjadi target orang-orang yang menginginkan kematian Lincoln.

• Amaury Nolasco sebagai Fernando Sucre (Season 1–4): Sucre menjalin persahabatan dengan Michael sejak mereka menjadi teman satu sel di penjara Fox River. Cerita dari karakter ini memfokuskan pada keinginannya untuk bersatu lagi dengan kekasihnya, Maricruz. Ketika menerima naskah untuk episode pilot, yang pertama terlintas dalam pikiran Nolasco adalah ini merupakan "salah satu episode pilot gagal yang tidak diinginkan oleh stasiun televisi" karena hampir semua episode pilot untuk serial lain sudah mulai diproduksi pada saat itu. Mengakui bahwa ia tidak suka membaca, Nolasco terkesan karena ternyata ceritanya tidak mudah ditebak. Setelah audisi terakhirnya, Paul Scheuring mengatakan bahwa ia adalah pilihan utama dan akhirnya mendapatkan peran ini.

• Robert Knepper sebagai Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell (Season 1–4): T-Bag muncul di semua season sebagai psikopat yang sadis, kasar dan manipulatif. T-Bag tidak akan berhenti sampai mendapatkan apa yang ia inginkan dan tidak segan melakukan apa saja pada mereka yang menghalanginya.

• Peter Stormare sebagai John Abruzzi (Season 1-2): Perannya sebagai bos mafia Chicago, Abruzzi menjadi figur yang disegani di penjara Fox River. Ia setuju menyediakan pesawat untuk pelarian Michael asalkan Michael memberitahukan lokasi saksi mata kejahatannya, Otto Fibonacci. Ia muncul di paruh pertama season 1 dan muncul beberapa kali di akhir season dan awal season 2.

• Rockmond Dunbar sebagai Benjamin Miles "C-Note" Franklin (Season 1–2, 4): Demi menemui keluarganya, C-Note memeras Michael di Fox River agar bisa bergabung dengan tim yang hendak melarikan diri.

• Wade Williams sebagai Brad Bellick (Season 1–4): Muncul di semua season, Bellick pada awalnya adalah pimpinan penjaga penjara Fox River. Setelah membaca naskah episode pilot, Williams sebenarnya tidak ingin memerankan Bellick karena karaternya "kejam dan keji". Apalagi ia adalah ayah dari anak yang berumur empat tahun. Namun, manajernya membujuk Williams untuk ikut audisi dan akhirnya ia pun mendapatkan peran sebagai Bellick.

• Sarah Wayne Callies sebagai Sara Tancredi (Season 1–2, 4): Sara adalah dokter yang bekerja di penjara Fox River dan putri dari Gubernur Frank Tancredi, yang berhubungan dengan orang-orang yang menjebak Lincoln. Sara jatuh cinta pada Michael dan membantu pelariannya. Callies adalah aktris pertama yang dilhat produser pada audisi untuk peran Sara Tancredi dan juga menjadi pemeran pertama yang terpilih dalam jajaran kasting.

• Paul Adelstein sebagai Paul Kellerman (Season 1–2, 4): Kellerman pada awalnya adalah agen rahasia yang bekerja untuk Wakil Presiden dan tugasnya adalah memastikan bahwa eksekusi Lincoln Burrows berjalan lancar. Kemudian, karakternya berubah dari musuh dan menjadi sekutu bagi Michael dan Lincoln.

• William Fichtner sebagai Alexander Mahone (Season 2–4): Sebagai agen FBI, tugas Mahone adalah menemukan para pelarian. Secara intelektual, Mahone sangat mirip dengan Michael dan latar belakangnya mulai terkuak seiring berjalannya serial ini. Di season ketiga Mahone dipenjara di Sona dengan Michael dan terus menjadi sekutunya sampai season terakhir.

• Chris Vance sebagai James Whistler (Season 3-4): Whistler dipenjara di Sona karena membunuh putra Walikota. Ia menjadi salah satu karakter utama di season tiga dan muncul di awal season empat.

• Robert Wisdom sebagai Norman "Lechero" St. John (Season 3): Muncul sebagai salah satu karakter utama di season 3, Lechero adalah narapidana yang menguasai Sona dan seorang gembong narkoba Panama.

• Danay Garcia sebagai Sofia Lugo (Season 3-4): Sofia pada awal season 3 adalah kekasih Whistler. Hubungannya dengan Lincoln mulai terlihat pada paruh akhir season 3. Dan pada awal season 4 ia mulai berkencan dengan Lincoln Burrows.

• Jodi Lyn O'Keefe sebagai Gretchen Morgan (Season 3–4): Mulanya ia adalah "Susan B. Anthony". Gretchen adalah agen Company yang ditugaskan untuk membebaskan James Whistler.

• Michael Rapaport sebagai Donald Self (Season 4): Muncul di season 4, Self adalah Agen Keamanan Negara yang membentuk tim untuk menghancurkan Company.

Sinopsis
Season 1
Season pertama menceritakan tentang pembebasan Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), yang menghadapi hukuman mati dengan tuduhan membunuh Terrence Steadman (Jeff Perry), saudara kandung wakil presiden Amerika. Lincoln ditahan di penjara Fox River State sembari menunggu eksekusinya. Adik Lincoln, seorang insinyur jenius, Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller), percaya bahwa Lincoln tidak bersalah dan membuat sebuah rencana pelarian. Unutk mendapatkan akses penuh ke penjara Fox Riverm Michael melakukan perampokan dan membiarkan dirinya tertangkap. Di Fox River, Michael berteman dengan dokter penjara Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies) dan berpura-pura mengidap diabetes tipe 1 supaya ia mendapatkan akses harian ke klinik. Perjuangan Linc dan Michael juga dibantu oleh sahabat mereka Veronica Donovan (Robin Tunney), seorang pengacara yang menyelidiki konspirasi apa yang menjebloskan Linc ke dalam penjara. Namun, sepak terjang mereka selalu dibayangi agen The Company. Company adalah organisasi yang menjebak Lincoln, dan mereka melakukan ini karena ayah Lincoln, Aldo Burrows, yang dulunya bekerja untuk Company. Lincoln dan Michael, bersama enam narapidana lainnya, Fernando Sucre (Amaury Nolasco), Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell (Robert Knepper), Benjamin Miles "C-Note" Franklin (Rockmond Dunbar), David "Tweener" Apolskis (Lane Garrison), John Abruzzi (Peter Stormare), and Charles "Haywire" Patoshik (Silas Weir Mitchell), yang kemudian dikenal dengan sebutan Fox River Eight, berhasil melarikan diri dari Fox River di episode akhir season 1.

Season 2
Season kedua bermula delapan jam sejak pelarian. Fox River Eight berpisah dan memulai perjalanan masing-masing dengan pihak berwajib yang terus membayangi mereka. Brad Bellick (Wade Williams) dipecat dari Fox River dan mengejar mereka untuk mendapatkan hadiah uang. Beberapa narapidana bertemu kembali untuk mendapatkan sejumlah besar uang hasil rampokan narapidana lain yang dikubur di suatu tempat. Agen Federal Alexander Mahone (William Fichtner) diberi tugas untuk melacak dan menangkap kedelapan narapidana, namun ternyata ia juga bekerja untuk Company, yang menginginkan kedelapan orang tersebut mati. Ketika Sara mendapati ayahnya, Gubernur Frank Tancredi, meninggal, ia bertemu Michael, dan tetap bersama mereka sementara Michael dan Lincoln berusaha membuktikan keterlibatan sang Presiden dengan Company. Untuk memastikan keselamatan kakak-beradik itu, Sara membiarkan dirinya tertangkap dan menghadapi persidangan. Dalam persidangan tersebut, kesaksian mantan agen rahasia Paul Kellerman (Paul Adelstein)-yang tadinya bekerja untuk sang Presiden (yang dikontrol Company)- membebaskan Lincoln dan Sara. Beberapa dari Fox River Eight terbunuh atau tertangkap, tetapi Linc dan Michael berhasil sampai ke Panama. Namun kemudian Michael, T-Bag, Mahone, dan Bellick ditangkap pihak berwajib Panama dan dipenjara di Sona.

Season 3
Season ketiga bercerita tentang Michael di Sona dan Lincoln yang ada di luar, yaitu di Panama. Sona dalah penjara yang dikuasai oleh narapidana dan dijaga hanya dari luar sejak kerusuhan yang terjadi setahun sebelumnya. Lincoln segera dikontak oleh Susan alias Gretchen Morgan (agen Company yang bertanggung jawab atas kegiatan di Panama) yang menculik anaknya LJ (Marshall Allman) dan Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies), wanita yang dicintai Michael. Gretchen mengatakan pada Lincoln bahwa Company menginginkan Scofield membebaskan James Whistler (Chris Vance) dari Sona. Episode selanjutnya mengisahkan tentang bagaimana Michael dan Whistler mencoba membuat rencana pelarian di bawah tekanan penjara yang sangat berbeda dari Fox River. sementara itu Lincoln juga berusaha membuat kesepakatan dengan Gretchen Morgan (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe). Sucre mendapatkan pekerjaan di Sona untuk membantu Michael dalam menjalankan rencana pelariannya. Ketika Lincoln berusaha membebaskan Sara dan LJ, Gretchen mengirimkan potongan kepala Sara sebagai peringatan. Di akhir season, Michael dan Whistler berhasil keluar bersama Mahone, an narapidana lain McGrady tertinggal, juga T-Bag dan Bellick. Identitas Sucre terungkap oleh salah satu penjaga penjara dan ia dipenjara di Sona sesaat setelah pelarian Michael. LJ dan Sofia (yang ditangkap sebagai jaminan) ditukar untuk Whistler, dan Michael hendak membalas dendam atas kematian Sara.

Season 4
Plot utama season keempat adalah tentang tim yang direkrut oleh Agen Keamanan Nasional (Homeland Security), Don Self (Michael Rapaport) untuk mendapatkan Scylla. Meski pada awalnya tim tersebut yakin bahwa Scylla adalah "buku hitam" Company, kemudian terungkap bahwa Scylla memuat informasi tentang sumber energi yang dapat diperbaharui. Paruh pertama season keempat, tim ini berhasil mendapatkan kartu untuk mengakses Scylla dan menerobos ke markas Company. Sara teryata masih hidup, Bellick terbunuh dan Self ternyata agen ganda dan menjual Scylla ke penawar tertinggi. Meski enggan, Lincoln memutuskan untuk membantu Company untuk mendapatkan Scylla kembali, sementara Michael didiagnosis menderita semacam kanker otak. Ia dirawat dan dioperasi oleh Company. Kemudian ia mengetahui bahwa ibunya, Christina, masih hidup dan menjadi agen Company, yang juga memburu Scylla untuk menjualnya ke penawar tertinggi. Season ini berakhir dengan diserahkannya Scylla ke pihak berwenang, Jenderal Krantz dan Company dijatuhkan, Christina terbunuh, dan nama mereka semua dibersihkan. Dalam dua episode terakhir, yang menceritakan apa yang terjadi selama empat tahun berselang yang ada di episode terakhir, menjelaskan bagaimana Sara ditahan di penjara Miami dan bagaimana Michael berusaha membebaskan Sara sebelum suruhan Jenderal Krantz (yang melibatkan T-Bag dan Gretchen) membunuhnya.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

2010-01-28T01:16:00.000-08:00

COOPERATIVE LEARNING : MENUMBUHKAN KEMAMPUAN BERPIKIR KRITIS Marhamah*)

Abstrak
Perkembangan model pembelajaran dari waktu ke waktu terus mengalami perubahan. Model-model pembelajaran tradisional kini mulai ditinggalkan berganti dengan model yang lebih modern. Salah satu model pembelajaran yang kini banyak mendapat respon adalah model pembelajaran kooperatif atau cooperative learning, karena model ini tidak hanya unggul dalam membantu siswa memahami konsep yang sulit, tetapi juga sangat berguna untuk menumbuhkan kemampuan berpikir kritis, bekerja sama, dan membantu teman.Kata kunci : cooperative learning, berpikir kritis.

A. Pendahuluan
Belajar adalah suatu proses perubahan perilaku berkat pengalaman dan latihan, baik perubahan yang menyangkut pengetahuan, keterampilan, maupun sikap. Slameto (1991) juga berpendapat bahwa belajar adalah suatu proses usaha yang dilakukan individu untuk memperoleh suatu perubahan tingkah laku yang baru secara keseluruhan, sebagai hasil pengalaman individu itu sendiri dalam berinteraksi dengan lingkungannya. Lingkungan yang dimaksud amat luas, tetapi terutama yang dimaksudkan di sini adalah lingkungan pendidikan yang berupa kegiatan belajar mengajar. Dalam kegiatan belajar, masalah yang dihadapi seseorang cukup kompleks. Artinya, dalam belajar dipengaruhi oleh bermacam-macam hal yang saling berkaitan. Proses belajar yang dilakukan seseorang pasti akan menunjukkan gejala/proses dan hasil belajar yang berbeda-beda. Perbedaan ini bersumber pada kenyataan bahwa manusia berbeda kemampuan dalam memahami sesuatu. Jadi, sukses seseorang dalam belajar merupakan gabungan dari kesanggupannya berdasarkan potensi yang ada dalam dirinya untuk memahami sesuatu, pelajaran yang selaras, dan metode belajar mengajar yang baik. Pernyataan senada disampaikan oleh Gagne yang dikutip dalam Zachri (1989), yaitu sesungguhnya banyak faktor yang mempengaruhi hasil belajar siswa. Faktor-faktor tersebut dibedakan menjadi faktor eksternal dan faktor internal. Faktor internal adalah factor yang berasal dari dalam siswa, yang meliputi : bakat, minat, motivasi, sikap, gaya belajar, dan lain-lain. Faktor eksternal adalah faktor yang berasal dari luar diri siswa, yang meliputi : metode dalam mengajar, alat evaluasi, lingkungan belajar, media pengajaran, dan lain-lain. Dalam upaya mencapai hasil belajar yang optimal, guru dituntut untuk bisa memilih metode mengajar yang paling sesuai dengan karakteristik siswa, materi pembelajaran, dan lain-lain. Namun, kenyatannya pelaksanaan memilih metode pembelajaran masih berpola pada paradigma pembelajaran yang teacher centered belum pada student centered. Dalam model pembelajaran tradisional, untuk keberhasilan pembelajaran, guru berusaha melakukan transfer pengetahuan kepada siswa. Dalam transfer pengetahuan dan pengalaman itu siswa harus berkonsentrasi dalam mendengarkan penjelasan dan uraian guru sehingga aktivitas yang tercipta adalah D3CH (duduk, diam, dengar, catat, dan hafal) (Anita Lie, 2002). Jadi, berdasarkan penyataan-pernyataan diatas, guru perlu memikirkan bagaimana memilih metode mengajar yang bisa melayani kecepatan belajar dan tingkat kemampuan yang berbeda-beda. Untuk bisa melayani siswa dengan berbagai karakteristiknya, banyak metode yang bisa dipilih. Dalam artikel ini akan dibahas metode mengajar dengan menggunakan model pembelajaran kooperatif yang diharapkan menjadi salah satu alternatif penyelesaian masalah yang selama ini menjadikan siswa pasif.

B. Pengertian Pembelajaran Kooperatif
Cooperative learning berasal dari kata cooperative yang artinya mengerjakan sesuatu secara bersama-sama dengan saling membantu satu sama lainnya sebagai satu kelompok atau satu tim. Pembelajaran kooperatif lebih dikenal dengan istilah cooperative learning yaitu pembelajaran berkelompok yang diselenggarakan sedemikian rupa sehingga tiap-tiap siswa terlibat setiap saat dalam kelompokknya dan siswa dapat bekerjasama dengan kemampuan maksimal yang mereka miliki. Slavin (1995) mengemukakan, “in cooperative learning methods, students work together in four member teams to master material initially presented by the teacher”. Dari uraian tersebut dapat dikemukakan bahwa cooperative learning adalah suatu model pembelajaran dimana system belajar dan bekerja dalam kelompok-kelompok kecil yang berjumlah 4-6 orang secara kolaboratif sehingga dapat merangsang siswa lebih bergairah dalam belajar. Anita Lie (2000) menyebut cooperative learning dengan istilah pembelajaran gotong royong, yaitu sistem pembelajaran yang memberi kesempatan kepada peserta didik untuk bekerjasama dengan siswa lain dalam tugas-tugas yang terstruktur. Lebih jauh dikatakan, cooperative learning hanya berjalan kalau sudah terbentuk suatu kelompok atau suatu tim yang didalamnya siswa bekerja secara terarah untuk mencapai tujuan yang sudah ditentukan dengan jumlah anggota kelompok pada umumnya terdiri dari 4-6 orang saja. Djahiri K (2004) menyebutkan cooperative learning sebagai pembelajaran kelompok kooperatif yang menuntut diterapkannya pendekatan belajar yang siswa sentries, humanistic, dan demokratis yang disesuaikan dengan kemampuan siswa dan lingkungan belajarnya. Dengan demikian, maka pembelajaran kooperatif mampu membelajarkan diri dan kehidupan siswa baik dikelas atau disekolah. Lingkungan belajarnya juga membina dan meningkatkan serta mengembangkan potensi diri siswa sekaligus memberikan pelatihan hidup senyatanya. Jadi, cooperative learning dapat dirumuskan sebagai kegiatan pembelajaran kelompok yang terarah, terpadu, efektif-efisien, ke arah mencari atau mengkaji sesuatu melalui proses kerjasama dan saling membantu (sharing) sehingga tercapai proses dan hasil belajar yang produktif (survive). Cooperative learning ini bukan bermaksud untuk menggantikan pendekatan kompetitif (persaingan). Nuansa kompetitif dalam kelas akan sangat baik bila diterapkan secara sehat. Pendekatan kooperatif ini adalah sebagai salah satu alternatif dalam mengisi kelemahan kompetisi, yakni hanya sebagian siswa saja yang akan bertambah pintar, sementara yang lainnya semakin tenggelam dalam ketidaktahuannya. Tidak sedikit siswa yang kurang pengetahuan merasa malu bila kekuranggannya di-expose. Kadang-kadang motivasi persaingan akan menjadi kurang sehat bila para murid saling menginginkan agar siswa lainnya tidak mampu, katakanlah dalam menjawab soal yang diberikan guru. Sikap mental inilah yang dirasa perlu untuk mengalami improvement (perbaikan).

C. Unsur-unsur Dasar dalam Coperative Learning
Menurut (Lungdren, 1994), unsur-unsur dasar dalam cooperative learning adalah sebagai berikut :
1. Para siswa harus memiliki persepsi bahwa mereka “tenggelam atau berenang bersama”.
2. Para siswa harus memiliki tanggung jawab terhadap siswa atau peserta didik lain dalam kelompoknya, selain tanggung jawab terhadap diri sendiri dalam mempelajari materi yang dihadapi.
3. Para siswa harus berpandangan bahwa mereka semua memiliki tujuan yang sama.
4. Para siswa membagi tugas dan berbagi tanggung jawab di antara para anggota kelompok.
5. Para siswa diberikan satu evaluasi atau penghargaan yang akan ikut berpengaruh terhadap evaluasi kelompok.
6. Para siswa berbagi kepemimpinan sementara mereka memperoleh keterampilan bekerjasama selama belajar.
7. Setiap siswa akan diminta mempertanggungjawabkan secara individual materi yang ditangani dalam kelompok kooperatif.

D. Tujuan Cooperative Learning
Pada dasarnya model cooperative learning dikembangkan untuk mencapai setidak-tidaknya tiga tujuan pembelajaran penting yang dirangkum Ibrahim, et al. (2000), yaitu :
1. Hasil belajar akademikDalam cooperative learning meskipun mencakup beragam tujuan sosial, juga memperbaiki prestasi siswa atau tugas-tugas akademis penting lainnya. Di samping mengubah norma yang berhubungan dengan hasil belajar, cooperative learning dapat memberi keuntungan, baik pada siswa kelompok bawah maupun kelompok atas yang bekerja bersama menyelesaikan tugas-tugas akademik.
2. Penerimaan terhadap perbedaan individuTujuan lain model cooperative learning adalah penerimaan secara luas dari orang-orang yang berbeda berdasarkan ras, budaya, kelas social, kemampuan dan ketidakmampuannya. Pembelajaran kooperatif memberi peluang bagi siswa dari berbagai latar belakang dan kondisi untuk bekerja dengan saling bergantung pada tugas-tugas akademik dan melalui struktur penghargaan kooperatif akan belajar saling menghargai satu sama lain.
3. Pengembangan keterampilan sosialTujuan ketiga cooperative learning adalah mengajarkan kepada siswa keterampilan bekerjasama dan kolaborasi. Keterampilan-keterampilan social penting dimiliki siswa, sebab saat ini banyak anak muda masih kurang dalam keterampilan sosial.

E. Karakteristik Cooperative Learning
Pembelajaran kooperatif berbeda dengan strategi pembelajaran yang lain. Perbedaan tersebut dapat dilihat dari proses pembelajaran yang lebih menekankan kepada proses kerjasama dalam kelompok. Adapun karakteristik dari pembelajaran kooperatif adalah :· Pembelajaran secara tim· Didasarka pada manajemen kooperatif · Kemauan untuk bekerja sama· Keterampilan bekerja sama

F. Prosedur Pembelajaran Cooperative Learning
Prosedur pembelajaran kooperatif pada prinsipnya terdiri atas empat tahap, yaitu :· Penjelasan MateriTahap penjelasan diartikan sebagai proses penyampaian pokok-pokok materi pelajaran sebelum siswa belajar dalam kelompok. Tujuan utama dalam tahap ini adalah pemahamam siswa terhadap pokok materi pelajaran. Pada tahap ini guru memberikan gambaran umum tentang materi pelajaran yang harus dikuasai yang selanjutnya siswa akan memperdalam materi dalam pembelajaran kelompok (tim).· Belajar dalam KelompokSetelah guru menjelaskan gambaran umum tentang pokok-pokok materi pelajaran, selanjutnya siswa diminta untuk belajar pada kelompoknya masing-masing yang telah dibentuk sebelumnya. Pengelompokkannya bersifat heterogen. Dalam hal kemampuan akademik, kelompok pembelajaran biasanya terdiri dari satu orang berkemampuan akademis tinggi, dua orang dengan kemampuan sedang dan satu lainnya dari kelompok kemampuan akademis kurang (Anita Lie, 2005).· PenilaianPenilaian bisa dilakukan dengan tes atau kuis yang dilakukan secara individual maupun kelompok.· Pengakuan TimPengakuan tim adalah penetapan tim yang dianggap paling menonjol untuk kemudian diberikan penghargaan atau hadiah. Pengakuan dan pemberian penghargaan tersebut diharapkan dapat memotivasi tim untuk terus berprestasi dan juga membangkitkan motivasi tim lain untuk lebih mampu meningkatkan prestasi mereka.

G. Berpikir Kritis
Nama lain berpikir kritis adalah keterampilan berpikir, berpikir kreatif, ‘higher-order thinking’, ‘good thinking’, ‘thinking well’ atau ‘thinking smarter’, yaitu dapat megindentifikasi pertanyaan dan menjawab pertanyaan tersebut dengan mencari dan menelusuri pengetahuan secara mandiri dan dapat mencari bukti untuk mendukung sebuah argument. Keterampilan berargumen adalah kemampuan untuk memberikan pendapat lain terhadap pendapat orang lain dan dapat menunjukkan bukti-bukti yang mendukung maupun yang tidak mendukung pendapat tersebut. Berpikir kritis meliputi : membandingkan, menerjemahkan, mengamati, menyimpulkan dan menggolongkan; menyusun hipotesis; mengambil keputusan, mengkritik dan mengevaluasi; mendesain investigasi; mengidentifikasi asumsi; membuat kode, mengumpulkan dan menyusun data atau informasi. Ciri-ciri berpikir kritis :· Disposisi personal : mencari kebenaran, terbuka, analitis, sistematis, percaya diri, ingin tahu dan bersikap dewasa.· Terampil dalam : analisis, evaluasi, menyimpulkan, berpikir deduktif dan induktif.· Kriteria untuk evaluasi diri/orang lain : jelas, tepat, spesifik, relevan, dalam, luas dan logis. Berpikir kritis terdiri dari pengetahuan dan keterampilan yang berhubungan dengan mengumpulkan, menganalisis dan mengorganisasi informasi, merencanakan aktifitas, memecahkan masalah, mengkomunikasikan informasi, bekerja sama dengan orang lain, dan menggunakan teknologi.

H. Kelebihan dan Kelemahan Cooperative Learning
Setiap model pembelajaran pasti memiliki kelebihan dan kelemahan, termasuk model pembelajaran kooperatif karena tidak ada yang paling tepat untuk dipakai pada semua karakteristik siswa, materi dan lain-lain. Kelebihan dan kelemahan cooperative learning adalah sebagai berikut :
1. Kelebihana.
a.Tidak terlalu menggantungkan pada guru atau dosen, akan tetapi dapat menambah kepercayaan kemampuan berpikir sendiri, menemukan informasi dari berbagai sumber, dan belajar dari siswa yang lain.
b. Dapat mengembangkan kemampuan mengungkapkan ide atau gagasan dengan kata-kata secara verbal dan membandingkannya dengan ide-ide orang lain.
c. Dapat membantu anak untuk respek pada orang lain dan menyadari akan segala keterbatasannya serta menerima segala perbedaan.
d. Membantu memberdayakan setiap siswa untuk lebih bertanggung jawab dalam belajar.
e. Dapat meningkatkan kemampuan siswa menggunakan informasi dan kemampuan belajar abstrak menjadi nyata (riil).
f. Interaksi selama kooperatif berlangsung dapat meningkatkan motivasi dan memberikan rangsangan untuk berpikir. Hal ini berguna untuk proses pendidikan jangka panjang.
2. Kelemahan
a. Penilaian yang diberikan didasarkan kepada hasil kerja kelompok. Namun demikian, guru perlu menyadari, bahwa sebenarnya hasil atau prestasi yang diharapkan adalah prestasi setiap individu siswa.
b. Keberhasilan model pembelajaran kooperatif dalam upaya mengembangkan kesadaran berkelompok memerlukan periode waktu yang cukup panjang.
c. Walaupun kemampuan bekerjasama merupakan kemampuan yang sangat penting untuk siswa, akan tetapi banyak aktivitas dalam kehidupan yang hanya didasarkan kepada kemampuan secara individual.
Oleh karena itu idealnya melalui model pembelajaran kooperatif selain siswa belajar bekerja sama, siswa juga harus belajar bagaimana membangun kepercayaan diri.

I. Simpulan
Untuk efektifitas dalam menyampaikan materi pelajaran, seorang guru pasti menerapkan model pembelajaran yang dirasakan paling sesuai dengan karakteristik siswanya. Banyak model pembelajaran yang bisa dipilih oleh guru, salah satu diantaranya adalah model pembelajaran kooperatif atau cooperative learning. Pemilihan model pembelajaran kooperatif ini bertolak dari keinginan untuk menumbuhkan kepribadian siswa yang demokratis dan sebagai alternatif pilihan dalam mengisi kelemahan kompetisi. Model ini dirancang untuk menampung perbedaan individual dalam gaya belajar, motivasi, pengetahuan, keterampilan, dan lain-lain. J. Saran Setiap jenis model pembelajaran pasti memiliki kelebihan dan kekurangan sehingga tidak ada satu pun jenis model pembelajaran yang paling tepat untuk bisa mengatasi semua jenis materi pelajaran, karakteristik siswa, kondisi kelas dan lain-lain. Oleh karena itu, dalam pembelajaran jika seorang guru menerapkan berbagai model pembelajaran merupakan hal wajar justru sangat menguntungkan. Namun, berkaitan dengan model pembelajaran kooperatif atau cooperative learning di atas hendaknya seorang guru mempertimbangkan apakah kelemahan model tersebut masih dapat diatasi dan ditutupi dengan kelebihan yang ada.

Daftar Pustaka
Ibrahim, M. et, all. 2000. Pembelajaran Kooperatif. Surabaya : Universitas negeri Surabaya Press. Isjoni. 2007. Cooperative Learning Efektifitas Pembelajaran Kelompok. Bandung : Alfabeta. Lie, Anita. 2002. Cooperative Learning. Jakarta : Grasindo. Lie, Anita. 2005. Cooperative Learning. Jakarta : Grasindo. Sanjaya, Wina. 2006. Strategi Pembelajaran Berorientasi Standar Proses Pendidikan. Jakarta : Kencana. Slameto. 1991. Belajar dan Faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhinya. Jakarta : Rineka Cipta. Slavin, R. E. 1992. Cooperative Learning. USA : Allyn and Bacon. Zachri, Abdul L. 1989. Prinsip Desain Instruksional. Jakarta : Pustaka Teknologi Pendidikan IKIP.

LEGEND

2009-12-12T03:16:00.000-08:00

LEGENDA RADEN KAMANDAKA

(LUTUNG KASARUNG)

Di Jawa Barat pada jaman dahulu kala ada sebuah Kerajaan Hindu yang besar dan cukup kuat, yaitu berpusat di kota Bogor. Kerajaan itu adalah Kerajaan "Pajajaran", pada saat itu raja yang memerintah yaitu Prabu Siliwangi. Beliau sudah lanjut usia dan bermaksud mengangkat Putra Mahkotanya sebagai penggantinya.

Prabu Siliwangi mempunyai tiga orang putra dan satu orang putri dari dua Permaisuri, dari permaisuri yang pertama mempunyai dua orang putra yaitu: Banyak Cotro dan Banyak Ngampar. Namun sewaktu Banyak Cotro dan Banyak Ngampar masih kecil ibunya telah meninggal.

Maka Prabu Siliwangi akhirnya kawin lagi dengan permaisuri yang kedua, yaitu Kumudaningsih. Pada waktu Dewi Kumuudangingsih diambil menjadi Permaisuri oleh Prabu Siliwangi, ia mengadakan perjanjian, bahwa jika kelak ia mempunyai putra laki-laki, maka putranyalah yang harus meggantikan menjadi raja di Pajajaran.

Dari perkawinannya dengan Dewi Kumudaningsih, Prabu Silliwangi mempunyai seorang putra dan seorang putri, yaitu: Banyak Blabur dan Dewi Pamungkas.

Pada suatu hari Prabu Siliwangi memanggil Putra Mahkotanya, Banyak Cotro dan Banyak Blabur untuk menghadap, maksudnya ialah Prabu Siliwangi akan mengangkat putranya untuk menggantikan menjadi raja di Pajajaran karena beliau sudah lajut usia.

Namun dari kedua Putra Mahkotanya belum ada yang mau diangkat menjadi raja di Pajajaran. Sebagai putra sulungnya Banyak Cokro mengajukan beberapa alasan, antara lain alasannya adalah:

• Untuk memerintahkan Kerajaan dia belum siap, karena belum cukup ilmu.

• Untuk memerintahkan Kerajaan seorang raja harus ada Permaisuri yang mendampinginya, sedangkan Banyak Cotro belum kawin.

Banyak Cotro mengatakan bahwa dia baru kawin kalau sudah bertemu dengan seorang putri yang parasnya mirip dengan ibunya. Oleh sebab itu Banyak Cotro meminta ijin pergi dari Kerajaan Pajajaran untuk mencaari putri yang menjadi idamannya..

Kepergian Banyak Cotro dari Kerajaan Pajajaran melalui gunung Tangkuban Perahu, untuk menghadap seorang pendeta yang bertempat di sana. Pendeta itu ialah Ki Ajar Winarong, seorang Pendeta sakti dan tahu untuk mempersunting putri yang di idam-idamkannya dapat tercapai.

Namun ada beberapa syarat yang harus dilakukan dan dipenuhi oleh Banyak Cotro, yaitu harus melepas dan menaggalkan semua pakaian kebesaran dari kerajaan dengan hanya memakai pakaian rakyat biasa. Dan ia harus menyamar dengan nama samaran "Raden Kamandaka"

Setelah Raden Kamandaka berjalan berhari-hari dari Tangkuban Perahu ke arah Timur, maka sampailah Raden Kamandaka kewilayah Kadipaten Pasir Luhur.

Secara kebetulan Raden Kamandaka sampai Pasir Luhur, betemu dengan Patih Kadipaten Pasir Luhur yaitu Patih Reksonoto. Karena Patih Reksonoto sudah tua tidak mempuunyai anak, maka Radenn Kamandaka akhirnya dijadikan anak angkat Patih Reksonoto merasa sangat bangga dan senang hatinya mempunyai Putra Angkat Raden Kamandaka yang gagah perkasa dan tampan, maka Patih Reksonoto saangat mencintainya.

Adapun yang memerintahkan Kadipaten Pasir Luhur adalah "Adi Pati Kanandoho". Beliau mempunyai beberapa orang Putri dan sudah bersuami kecuali yang paling bungsu yaitu Dewi Ciptoroso yang belum bersuami. Dewi Ciptoroso inilah seorang putri yang mempunyai wajah mirip Ibu raden Kamandaka, dan Putri inilah yng sedang dicari oeh Raden Kamandaka.

Suatu kebiasaan dari Kadipaten Pasir Luhur bahwa setiap tahun mengadakan upacara menangkap ikan di kali Logawa. Pada upacara ini semua keluarga Kadipaten Pasir Luhur beserta para pembesar dan pejabatan pemerintah turut menangkap ikan di kali Logawa.

Pada waktu Patih Reksonoto pergi mengikuti upacara menangkap ikan di kali Logawa, tanpa diketahuinya Raden Kamandaka secara diam-diam telah mengikutinya dari belakang. Pada kesempatan inilah Raden Kamandaka dapat bertemu dengan Dewi Ciptoroso dan mereka berdua saling jatuh cinta.

Atas permintaan dari Dewi Ciptoroso agar Raden Kamandaka pada malam harinya untuk dating menjumpai Dewi Ciptoroso di taman Kaputren Kadipaten Pasir Luhur tempat Dewi Ciptoroso berada. Benarlah pada malam harinya Raden Kamandaka dengan diam-diam tanpa ijin patih Resonoto, ia pun pergi menjumpai Dewi Ciptoroso yang sudah rindu menanti kedatangan Raden Kamandaka.

Namun keberadaan Raden Kamandaka di Taman Kaputren Bersama Dewi Ciptoroso tidak berlangsung lama. Karena tiba-tiba prajurit pengawal Kaputren mengetahui bahwa di daalam taman adaa pencuri yang masuk. Hal ini kemu kemudian dilaporkan oleh Adipatih Kandandoho.

Menanggapi laporan ini, maka Adipatih sangat marah dan memerintahkan praajuritnya untuk menangkap peencuri tersebut. Karena kesaktian daan ilmu ketangkasan yang dimiliki oleh Raden Kamandaka, maka Raden Kamandaka dapat meloloskan diri dari kepungan prajurit Pasir Luhur.

Sebelum Raden Kamandaka lolos daari Taman Kaputren, ia sempat mengatakan identitasnya. Bahwa ia bernama Raden Kamandaka putra dari Patih Reksonoto.

Hal inii di dengar olehh prajurit, dan melaporkan kepada Adipatih Kandandoohho. Mendengar hal innii maka Patih Reksonoto pun dipanggil dan harus menyerahkan putra nya . Perintaah ini dilaksanakan oleh Patih Reksonoto, walaupun dalam hatinya sangatlah berat. Sehimgga dengan siasat daari Patih Reksonoto, maka Raden Kamandaka dapat lari daan selamat daaripengejaran para prajurit.

Raden Kamandaka terjun masuk kedalam sungai dan menyelam mengikuti arus air sungai. Oleh Patih Reksonoto dan para prajurit yang mengejar,, dilapoprkan bahwa Raden Kamandaka dikatakan sudah mati didalam sugai. Mendengar berita ini Adipatih Kandandoho merasa lega dan puas. Nmun sebaliknya Dewi Ciptoroso yang setelah mendengar berita itu sangatlah muram dan sedih.

Sepanjang Raden Kamandaka menyelam mengikuti arus sungai bertemulah dengan seorang yang memancing di sungai. Orang tersebut bernama Rekajaya, Raden Kamandaka daan Rekajaya kemudian berteman baik dan menetap di desa Panagih. Di desa ini Raden Kamandaka diangkat anak oleh Mbok Kektosuro, seorang janda miskin di desa tersebbut.

Raden Kamandaka menjadi penggemar adu ayam. Kebetulan Mbok Reksonoto mempunyai ayam jago yang bernama "Mercu". Pada setiap penyabungan ayam Raden Kamandaka selalu menang dalam pertandingan, maka Raden Kamandaka menjadi sangat terkenal sebagai botoh ayam.

Hal ini tersiar saampai kerajaan Pasir Luhur, mendengar hal ini Adipatih Kandadoho menjadi marah dan murka. Beliau memerintahkan prajuritnya untuk menagkap hidup atau mati Raden Kamandaka .

Pada saat itu tiba-tiba datanglah seorang pemuda tampan mengaku dirinya bernama"Silihwarni" yang akan mengabdikan diri kepada Pasir Luhur, maka ia permohonannya di terima, tetapi asalkan ia harus dapat membunuh Raden Kamandaka. Untuk membuktikannya ia harus membawa darah dan hati Raden Kamandaka.

Sebenarnya Silihwarni adalah nama samaran. Nama itu sebenarnya adalah Banyak Ngampar Putra dari kejajaan Pajajaran, yaitu adik kandung dari Raden Kamandaka.

Ia oleh ayahnya Prabu Siliwangi ditugaskan untuk mencari saudara kandungnya yang pergi sudah lama belum kembali. Untuk mengatasi gangguan dalam perjalanan, ia dibekali pusaka keris Kujang Pamungkas sebagai senjatanya. Dan dia juga menyamar dengan nama Silihwarni, dan berpakaian seperti rakyat biasa.

Karena ia mendengar berita bahwa kakak kandungnya berada di Kadipaten Pasir Luhur, maka ia pun pergi kesana. Setelah Silihwarni menerima perintah daari Adipatih, pergilah ia dengan diikuti beberapa prajurit dan anjing pelacak menuju desa Karang Luas, tempat penyabungan ayam.

Ditempat inilah mereka bertemu. Namun keduanya sudah tidak mengenal lagi. Silihwari berpakaian seperti raknyat biasa sedangkan Raden Kamandaka berpakaian sebagai botoh ayam, dan wajahnya pucat karena menahan kernduan kepada kekasihnya.

Terjadilah persabungan ayan Raden Kamandaka dan Silihwarni, dengan tanpa disadari oleh raden kamandaka tiba-tiba Silihwrni menikam pinggang Raden Kamandaka dengan keris Kujang Pamungkasnya. Karena luka goresan keris itu tersebut darahpun keluar dengan deras. Namun karena ketangkasan Raden Kamandaka , iapun dapat lolos dari bahaya tersebut dan tempat ia dapat lolos itu dinamakan desa Brobosan, yang berarti ia dapat lolos dari bahaya.

Karena lukanya semakin deras mengeluarkan darah, maka iapun istirahat sebentar disuatu tempat, maka tempat itu dinamakan Bancran. Larinya Raden Kamandaka terus dikejar oleh Silihwarni dan prajurit. Pada suatu tempat Raden Kamandaka dapat menangkap anjing pelacaknya dan kemudian tempat itu di berinya nama desa Karang Anjing.

Raden Kamandaka terus lari kearah timur dan sampailah pada jalan buntu dan tempat ini ia memberi nama desa buntu. Pada akhirnya Raden Kamandaka sampailah disebuah Goa. Didalam Goa ini ia beristirahat dan bersembunyi dari kejaran Silihwarni. Silihwarni yang terus mengejar setelah sampai goa ia kehilangan jejak. Kemudian Silihwarnipun dari mulut goa tersebut berseru menantang Raden Kamandaka.

Setelah mendengar tantagan Silihwarni, Raden Kamandaka pun menjawab ia mengatakan identitasnya, bahwa ia adalah putra dari kerajaan Pajajaran namanya Banyak Cotro.

Setelah itu Silihwarnipun mengatakan identitasnya bahwa ia juga putra dari Kerajaan Pajajaran, bernama Banyak Ngampar. Demikian kata-kata ayang pengakuan antara Raden Kamandaka dan Silihwarni bahwa mereka adalah purta pajajaran, maka orang yang mendengar merupakan nama versi ke-2, untuk goa jatijajar tersebut. Kemudian mereka berdua berpeluka dan saling memaafkan.

Namun karena Silihwarni harus membawa bukti hati dan darah Raden Kamandaka, maka akhirnya anjing pelacaknya yang dipotong diambil darah dan hatinya. Dikatakan bahwa itu adalah hati dan darah Raden Kamandaka yang telah dibunuhnya.

Raden Kamandaka kemudian bertapa di dalam goa dan mendapat petunjuk , bahwa niatnya untuk mempersunting Dewi Ciptoroso akan tercapai kalau ia sudah mendapat pakaian "Lutung" dan ia disuruh supaya mendekat ke Kadipaten Pasir Luhur, yaitu supaya menetap di hutan Batur Agung, sebelah Barat Daya dari batu Raden.

Suatu kegemaran dari Adipatih Pasir Luhur adalah berburu. Pada suatu hari Adipatih dan semua keluarganya berburu, tiba-tiba bertemulah dengan seekor lutung yang sangat besar dan jinak. Yang akhirnya di tangkaplah lutung tersebut hidup-hidup.

Sewaktu akan dibawa pulang , tiba-tiba Rekajaya datang mengaku bahwa itu adalah lutung peliharaannya, dan mengatakan beredia membantu merawatnya jika lutung itu akan dipelihara di Kadipaten. Dan permohonan itu pun dikabulkan.

Setelah sampai di kadipaten para putri berebut ingin memelihara lutung tersebut. Selama di Kadipaten lutung tersebut tidak mau dikasih makan. Oleh sebab itu akhirnya oleh Adipatih lutung tersebut disayembarakan yaitu jika ada salah seoraang dari putrinya dapat memberi makan dan diterima oleh lutung tersebut maka ia lah yang akan memelihara lutung tersebut.

Ternyata makanan yang diterima oleh lutung tersebut hanyalah makanan dari Dewi Ciporoso, maka "Lutung Kasarung" itu menjadi peliharaan Dewi Ciptoroso. Pada malam hari lutung tersebut berubah wujud menjadi Raden Kamandaka. Sehingga hanya Dewi Ciptoroso yang tahu tentang hal tersebut. Pada siang hari ia berubah menjadi lutung lagi. Maka keadaan Dewi kini menjadi sangat gembira dan bahagia, yang selalu ditemani lutung kasarung.

Alkisah pada suatu hari raden dari Nusa Kambangan Prabu Pule Bahas menyuruh Patihnya untuk meminang Putri Bungsu Kadipaten Pasir Luhur Dewi Ciptoroso dan mengancam apabila pinangannya ditolak ia akan menghancurkan Kadipaten Pasir Luhur.

Atas saran dan permintaan dari Lutung Kasarung pinangan Raja Pule Bahas agar supaya diterima saja. Namun ada beberapa syarat yang haarus dipenuhi oleh raja Pule Bahas. Salah satunya ialah dalam pertemuan pengantin nanti Lutung Kasarung harus turut mendampingi Dewi Ciporoso.

Pada waktu pertemuan pengantin berlangsung, Raja Pule Bahas selalu diganggu oleh Lutung Kasarung yang selalu mendampingi Dewi Ciptoroso. Oleh sebab itu Raja Pule Bahas marah dan memukul Lutung Kasarung. Namun Lutung Kasarung telah siap berkelahi melawan Raja Pule Bahas.

Pertarungan Raja Pule Bahas dengan Lutung Kasarung terjadi sangat seru. Namun karena kesaktian dari Luung Kasarung, akhirnya Raja Pule Bahas gugur dicekik dan digigit oleh Lutung Kasarung.

Tatkala Raja Pule Bahas gugur maka Lutung Kasarung pun langsung menjelma menjadi Raden Kamandaka, dan langsung mengenkan pakaian kebesaran Kejajaan Pajajaran dan mengaku namanya Banyak Cotro. Kini Adipatih Pasir Luhur pun mengetahui hal yang sebenarnya adalah Raden Kamandaka dan Raden Kamandaka adalah Banyak Cotro dan Banyak Cotro adalah Lutung Kasarung putra mahkota dari kerajaan Pajajaran. Dan akhirnya ia dikawinkan dengan Dewi Ciptoroso.

Namun karena Raden Kamandaka sudah cacat pada waktu adu ayam dengan Silihwarni kena keris Kujang Pamungkas maka Raden Kamandaka tidak dapat menggantikan menjadi raja di Pajajaran.

Karena tradisi kerajaan Pajajaran, bahwa putra mahkota yang akan menggantikan menjadi raja tidak boleh cacat karena pusaka Kujang Pamungkas. Sehingga setelah ia dinikahkan dengan Dewi Ciptoroso, Raden Kamandaka hanya dapat menjadi Adipatih di Pasir Luhur Menggantikan mertuanya. Sedangkan yang menjadi Raja di Pajajaran adalah Banyak Blabur

PERKEMBANGAN PENULISAN SEJARAH INDONESIA

2009-10-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

PERKEMBANGAN PENULISAN SEJARAH INDONESIA
Penulisan sejarah (historiografi) di Indonesia umumnya digolongkan kedalam tiga tahapan perkembangan yaitu historiografi tradisional, historiografi kolonial, dan historiografi modern Indonesia. Dan setiap historiografi tersebut masing-masing memililiki ciri-ciri yang berbeda dan jenis yang dihasilkanpun berbeda.

Historiografi Tradisional
Historiografi tradisional adalah tradisi penulisan sejarah yang berlaku pada masa setelah masyarakat Indonesia mengenal tulisan, baik pada Zaman Hindu-Budha maupun pada Zaman Islam. Ada pada abad 4 M sampai abad 17 M.
Hasil tulisan sejarah dari masa ini sering disebut sebagai naskah.
Contoh Historiografi tradisional:
Babad Tanah Jawi, Babad Kraton, Babad Diponegoro, Hikayat Hang Tuah, Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai, Hikayat Silsilah Raja Perak, Hikayat Tanah Hitu, Kronik Banjarmasin, dsb.

Adapun ciri-ciri historiografi tradisional yaitu:
· Penulisannya bersifat istana sentris yaitu berpusat pada keinginan dan kepentingan raja. Berisi masalah-masalah pemerintahan dari raja-raja yang berkuasa. Menyangkut raja dan kehidupan istana.
· Memiliki subjektifitas yang tinggi sebab penulis hanya mencatat peristiwa penting di kerajaan dan permintaan sang raja.
· Bersifat melegitimasi (melegalkan/mensahkan) suatu kekuasaan sehingga seringkali anakronitis (tidak cocok)
· Kebanyakan karya-karya tersebut kuat dalam genealogi (silsilah) tetapi lemah dalam hal kronologi dan detil-detil biografis.
· Pada umumnya tidak disusun secara ilmiah tetapi sering kali data-datanya bercampur dengan unsur mitos dan realitas (penuh dengan unsur mitos).
· Sumber-sumber datanya sulit untuk ditelusuri kembali bahkan terkadang mustahil untuk dibuktikan.
· Dipengaruhi oleh faktor budaya masyarakat dimana naskah tersebut ditulis sehingga merupakan hasil kebudayaan suatu masyarakat.
· Cenderung menampilkan unsur politik semata untuk menujukkan kejayaan dan kekuasaan sang raja.

Banyak sejarawan yang awalnya sampai tahun 1960-an tidak mau menggunakan naskah-naskah tersebut sebagai sumber atau referensi karya ilmiah. Akan tetapi, pada perkembangannya karena melalui berbagai penelitian membuktikan bahwa bayak hal yang ditulis dalam naskah tradisional tersebut dapat terungkap pula dalam sumber-sumber sejarah yang lain maka mereka mulai menganggap bahwa naskah/ historiografi tradisional tersebut dapat pula dijadikan sumber atau acuan sejarah.

Historiografi Kolonial
Ada pada abad 17-abad 20 M.
Historiografi kolonial merupakan historiografi warisan kolonial dan penulisannya digunakan untuk kepentingan penjajah.
Ciri-cirinya:
ü Tujuannya untuk memperkuat kekuasaan mereka di Indonesia. Jadi disusun untuk membenarkan penguasaan bangsa mereka terhadap bangsa pribumi (Indonesia). Sehingga untuk kepentingan tersebut mereka melupakan pertimbangan ilmiah.
ü Selain itu semuanya didominasi untuk tindakan dan politik kolonial.
ü Historiografi kolonial hanya mengungkapkan mengenai orang-orang Belanda dan peristiwa di negeri Belanda serta mengagung-agungkan peran orang Belanda sedangkan orang-orang Indonesia hanya dijadikan sebagai objek.
ü Historiografi kolonial memandang peristiwa menggunakan sudut pandang kolonial. Sifat historiografi kolonial eropasentris.
ü Ditujukan untuk melemahkan semanangat para pejuang atau rakyat Indonesia.

Seperti contohya: Orang Belanda menyebut ”pemberontakan” bagi setiap perlawanan yang dilakukan oleh daerah untuk melawan kekuasaan Belanda/ kekuasaan asing yang menduduki tanah airnya. Oleh Belanda itu dianggap sebagai ”perlawanan terhadap kekuasaannya yang sah sebagai pemilik Indonesia”. Seperti Perlawanan yang dilakukan oleh Diponegoro, Belanda menganggap itu sebagai ”Pemberontakan Diponegoro”.

Telah ada upaya untuk melakukan kritik terhadap beberapa tulisan orang Belanda seperti tulisan Geschiedenis van Nederlandsche-Indie (Sejarah Hindia Belanda) oleh Stapel yang dikritik J.C van Leur. Salah satu ungkapannya”jangan melihat kehidupan masyarakat hanya dari atas geladak kapal saja”, artinya jangan menuliskan masyarakat Hindia hanya dari sudut penguasa saja dengan mengabaikan sumber-sumber pribumi sehingga peranan pribumi tidak nampak sementara yang ada hanyalah aktivitas bangsa Belanda di Hindia.
Tetapi justru pendapat Stapel yang tenar di kalangan masyarakat Indonesia, salah satu pendapatnya yang masih dipercaya dan melekat dalam benak sebagian besar masyarakat Indonesia adalah bahwa bangsa Indonesia telah dijajah Belanda selama 350 tahun (1595-1545). Hal ini berarti bahwa bangsa Indonesia dijajah sejak tahun 1595 sewaktu Cornelis de Houtman berangkat dari negeri Belanda untuk mencari pulau penghasil rempah-rempah di dunia Timur. Dia sampai di Indonesia tahun 1596. Indonesia masih mengalami kekuasaan VOC (1602-1619), Inggris (1811-1816), Van den Bosh (1816-1830), Penghapusan Tanam Paksa(1830-1870), Liberalisme (1870-1900), Politik Etis (1900-1922), Sistem Administrasi Belanda (1922-1942), Jepang (1942-1945).

Historiografi Modern Indonesia/ historiografi nasional
Ada pada abad 20 M- sekarang. Setelah kemerdekaan bangsa Indonesia maka masalah sejarah nasional mendapat perhatian yang relatif besar terutama untuk kepentingan pembelajaran di sekolah sekaligus untuk sarana pewarisan nilai-nilai perjuangan serta jati diri bangsa Indonesia.
Ditandai dengan:
Ø Mulai muncul gerakan Indonesianisasi dalam berbagai bidang sehingga istilah-istilah asing khususnya istilah Belanda mulai diindonesiakan selain itu buku-buku berbahasa Belanda sebagian mulai diterjemahkan ke dalam bahasa Indonesia.
Ø Mulai Penulisan sejarah Indonesia yang berdasarkan pada kepentingan dan kebutuhan bangsa dan negara Indonesia dengan sudut pandang nasional.
Ø Orang-orang dan bangsa Indonesialah yang menjadi subjek/pembuat sejarah, mereka tidak lagi hanya sebagai objek seperti pada historiografi kolonial.
Ø Penulisan buku sejarah Indonesia yang baru awalnya hanya sekedar menukar posisi antara tokoh Belanda dan tokoh Indonesia.
Jika awalnya tokoh Belanda sebagai pahlawan sementara orang pribumi sebagai penjahat, maka dengan adanya Indonesianisasi maka kedudukannya terbalik dimana orang Indonesia sebagai pahlawan dan orang Belanda sebagai penjahat tetapi alur ceritanya tetap sama.

Keadaaan yang demikian membuat para sejarawan dan pengamat sejarah terdorong untuk mengadakan ”Kongres Sejarah Nasional” yang pertama yaitu pada tahun 1957. Pada kongres kedua namanya diubah menjadi ”Seminar Nasional Sejarah”, membicarakan mengenai rencana untuk pembuatan sebuah buku sejarah nasional baru dengan harapan dapat dijadikan semacam buku referensi.

Oleh karena itu penulisan sejarah yang seharusnya adalah:
1. Sebuah penulisan yang tidak sekedar mengubah pendekatan dari eropasentris menjadi indonesiasentris, tetapi juga menampilkan hal-hal baru yang sebelumnya belum sempat terungkap.
2. Penulisan sejarah dengan cara yang konvensional (yang hanya mengandalkan naskah sebagai sumber sejarah) yang bersifat naratif, deskriptif, kedaerahan, serta tema-tema politik dan penguasa diganti dengan cara penulisan sejarah yang kritis (struktural analitis)
3. Menggunakan pendekatan multidimensional.
Caranya yaitu dengan menggunakan teori-teori ilmu sosial untuk menjelaskan kejadiaan sejarah sesuai dengan dimensinya dengan menggunakan sumber-sumber yang lebih beragam daripada masa sebelumnya.
4. Mengungkapkan dinamika masyarakat Indonesia dari berbagai aspek kehidupan yang kemudian dapat dijadikan bahan kajian untuk memperkaya penulisan sejarah Indonesia.
Sebagai contoh:
Tulisan berjudul ”Pemberontakan Petani di Banten 1888” oleh Sartono Kartodirdjo, seorang sejarawan Indonesia pertama yang menggunakan metode multidimensional dalam penulisannya.

Penulisan sejarah Indonesia modern bertujuan untuk melakukan perbaikan dengan menggantiklan beberapa hal seperti:
· Adanya pandangan religio-magis serta kosmologis seperti tercermin dalam babad atau hikayat diganti dengan pandangan empiris-ilmiah.
· Adanya pandangan etnosentrisme diganti dengan pandangan nationsentris.
· Adanya pandangan sejarah kolonial-elitis diganti dengan sejarah bangsa Indonesia secara keseluruhan yang mencakup berbagai lapisan sosial.

2009-07-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Queen of the United Kingdom
Born: April, 21 1926 - Accession: February 6, 1952
We lost the American colonies because we lacked the
statesmanship to know the right time and the manner
of yielding what is impossible to keep.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth was born in London on April, 21 1926, first child of the Duke and Duchess of York
, subsequently King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Five weeks later she was christened in the chapel of Buckingham Palace and was given the names Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. The Queen ascended the throne on February 6, 1952 upon the death of her father, King George VI. Her Coronation followed on June 2, 1953.

Princess Elizabeth had her early education at home. After her father succeeded to the throne in 1936 and she became heiress presumptive, her studies were extended to include lessons on constitutional history and law. After the Second World War Princess Elizabeth's public engagements grew in number and frequency. Her first official visit overseas took place in 1947, when she accompanied her parents and sister on a tour of South Africa.

Princess Elizabeth married Philip Mountbatten (4th cousin) in Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947. Prince Charles, now the Prince of Wales and heir apparent to the throne, was born in 1948, the Princess Anne, now the Princess Royal, was born in 1950, the Prince Andrew, now the Duke of York, was born in 1960, and the Prince Edward, in 1964. The Queen and the Duke celebrated their silver
wedding anniversary in London in 1972.

In 1977, the Queen's Silver Jubilee was celebrated in the United Kingdom and throughout the Commonwealth. Accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen travelled some 56,000 miles to share the anniversary with her people. 2002 marked the 50th anniversary of The Queen's Accession to the Throne. This milestone had previously been achieved by only five other British monarchs: Henry III, Edward III, James I, George III and Queen Victoria.

If you are aware of books, movies, databases, web sites or other information sources about Queen Elizabeth II or related subjects, or if you would like to comment, please send us email: rc@.lucidcafe.com.

Hitler a Dictator

2009-05-17T02:49:00.000-07:00

How Hitler Became a Dictator
by Jacob G. Hornberger, Posted June 28, 2004

Whenever U.S. officials wish to demonize someone, they inevitably compare him to Adolf Hitler. The message immediately resonates with people because everyone knows that Hitler was a brutal dictator.

But how many people know how Hitler actually became a dictator? My bet is, very few. I’d also bet that more than a few people would be surprised at how he pulled it off, especially given that after World War I Germany had become a democratic republic.

The story of how Hitler became a dictator is set forth in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer, on which this article is based.

In the presidential election held on March 13, 1932, there were four candidates: the incumbent, Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler, and two minor candidates, Ernst Thaelmann and Theodore Duesterberg. The results were:

Hindenburg 49.6 percent
Hitler 30.1 percent
Thaelmann 13.2 percent
Duesterberg 6.8 percent

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, almost 70 percent of the German people voted against Hitler, causing his supporter Joseph Goebbels, who would later become Hitler’s minister of propaganda, to lament in his journal, “We’re beaten; terrible outlook. Party circles badly depressed and dejected.”

Since Hindenberg had not received a majority of the vote, however, a runoff election had to be held among the top three vote-getters. On April 19, 1932, the runoff results were:

Hindenburg 53.0 percent
Hitler 36.8 percent
Thaelmann 10.2 percent

Thus, even though Hitler’s vote total had risen, he still had been decisively rejected by the German people.

On June 1, 1932, Hindenberg appointed Franz von Papen as chancellor of Germany, whom Shirer described as an “unexpected and ludicrous figure.” Papen immediately dissolved the Reichstag (the national congress) and called for new elections, the third legislative election in five months.

Hitler and his fellow members of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, who were determined to bring down the republic and establish dictatorial rule in Germany, did everything they could to create chaos in the streets, including initiating political violence and murder. The situation got so bad that martial law was proclaimed in Berlin.

Even though Hitler had badly lost the presidential election, he was drawing ever-larger crowds during the congressional election. As Shirer points out,

In one day, July 27, he spoke to 60,000 persons in Brandenburg, to nearly as many in Potsdam, and that evening to 120,000 massed in the giant Grunewald Stadium in Berlin while outside an additional 100,000 heard his voice by loudspeaker.

Hitler’s rise to power

The July 31, 1932, election produced a major victory for Hitler’s National Socialist Party. The party won 230 seats in the Reichstag, making it Germany’s largest political party, but it still fell short of a majority in the 608-member body.

On the basis of that victory, Hitler demanded that President Hindenburg appoint him chancellor and place him in complete control of the state. Otto von Meissner, who worked for Hindenburg, later testified at Nuremberg,

Hindenburg replied that because of the tense situation he could not in good conscience risk transferring the power of government to a new party such as the National Socialists, which did not command a majority and which was intolerant, noisy and undisciplined.

Political deadlocks in the Reichstag soon brought a new election, this one in November 6, 1932. In that election, the Nazis lost two million votes and 34 seats. Thus, even though the National Socialist Party was still the largest political party, it had clearly lost ground among the voters.

Attempting to remedy the chaos and the deadlocks, Hindenburg fired Papen and appointed an army general named Kurt von Schleicher as the new German chancellor. Unable to secure a majority coalition in the Reichstag, however, Schleicher finally tendered his resignation to Hindenburg, 57 days after he had been appointed.

On January 30, 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany. Although the National Socialists never captured more than 37 percent of the national vote, and even though they still held a minority of cabinet posts and fewer than 50 percent of the seats in the Reichstag, Hitler and the Nazis set out to to consolidate their power. With Hitler as chancellor, that proved to be a fairly easy task.

The Reichstag fire

On February 27, Hitler was enjoying supper at the Goebbels home when the telephone rang with an emergency message: “The Reichstag is on fire!” Hitler and Goebbels rushed to the fire, where they encountered Hermann Goering, who would later become Hitler’s air minister. Goering was shouting at the top of his lungs,

This is the beginning of the Communist revolution! We must not wait a minute. We will show no mercy. Every Communist official must be shot, where he is found. Every Communist deputy must this very day be strung up.

The day after the fire, the Prussian government announced that it had found communist publications stating,

Government buildings, museums, mansions and essential plants were to be burned down... . Women and children were to be sent in front of terrorist groups.... The burning of the Reichstag was to be the signal for a bloody insurrection and civil war.... It has been ascertained that today was to have seen throughout Germany terrorist acts against individual persons, against private property, and against the life and limb of the peaceful population, and also the beginning of general civil war.

So how was Goering so certain that the fire had been set by communist terrorists? Arrested on the spot was a Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. Most historians now believe that van der Lubbe was actually duped by the Nazis into setting the fire and probably was even assisted by them, without his realizing it.

Why would Hitler and his associates turn a blind eye to an impending terrorist attack on their national congressional building or actually assist with such a horrific deed? Because they knew what government officials have known throughout history — that during extreme national emergencies, people are most scared and thus much more willing to surrender their liberties in return for “security.” And that’s exactly what happened during the Reichstag terrorist crisis.

Suspending civil liberties

The day after the fire, Hitler persuaded President Hindenburg to issue a decree entitled, “For the Protection of the People and the State.” Justified as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state,” the decree suspended the constitutional guarantees pertaining to civil liberties:

Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Two weeks after the Reichstag fire, Hitler requested the Reichstag to temporarily delegate its powers to him so that he could adequately deal with the crisis. Denouncing opponents to his request, Hitler shouted, “Germany will be free, but not through you!” When the vote was taken, the result was 441 for and 84 against, giving Hitler the two-thirds majority he needed to suspend the German constitution. On March 23, 1933, what has gone down in German history as the “Enabling Act” made Hitler dictator of Germany, freed of all legislative and constitutional constraints.

The judiciary under Hitler

One of the most dramatic consequences was in the judicial arena. Shirer points out,

Under the Weimar Constitution judges were independent, subject only to the law, protected from arbitrary removal and bound at least in theory by Article 109 to safeguard equality before the law.

In fact, in the Reichstag terrorist case, while the court convicted van der Lubbe of the crime (who was executed), three other defendants, all communists, were acquitted, which infuriated Hitler and Goering. Within a month, the Nazis had transferred jurisdiction over treason cases from the Supreme Court to a new People’s Court, which, as Shirer points out,

soon became the most dreaded tribunal in the land. It consisted of two professional judges and five others chosen from among party officials, the S.S. and the armed forces, thus giving the latter a majority vote. There was no appeal from its decisions or sentences and usually its sessions were held in camera. Occasionally, however, for propaganda purposes when relatively light sentences were to be given, the foreign correspondents were invited to attend.

One of the Reichstag terrorist defendants, who had angered Goering during the trial with a severe cross-examination of Goering, did not benefit from his acquittal. Shirer explains:

The German communist leader was immediately taken into “protective custody,” where he remained until his death during the second war.

In addition to the People’s Court, which handled treason cases, the Nazis also set up the Special Court, which handled cases of political crimes or “insidious attacks against the government.” These courts

consisted of three judges, who invariably had to be trusted party members, without a jury. A Nazi prosecutor had the choice of bringing action in such cases before either an ordinary court or the Special Court, and invariably he chose the latter, for obvious reasons. Defense lawyers before this court, as before the Volksgerichtshof, had to be approved by Nazi officials. Sometimes even if they were approved they fared badly. Thus the lawyers who attempted to represent the widow of Dr. Klausener, the Catholic Action leader murdered in the Blood Purge, in her suit for damages against the State were whisked off to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where they were kept until they formally withdrew the action.

Even lenient treatment by the Special Court was no guarantee for the defendant, however, as Pastor Martin Niemoeller discovered when he was acquitted of major political charges and sentenced to time served for minor charges. Leaving the courtroom, Niemoeller was taken into custody by the Gestapo and taken to a concentration camp.

The Nazis also implemented a legal concept called Schutzhaft or “protective custody” which enabled them to arrest and incarcerate people without charging them with a crime. As Shirer put it,

Protective custody did not protect a man from possible harm, as it did in more civilized countries. It punished him by putting him behind barbed wire.

On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg died, and the title of president was abolished. Hitler’s title became Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor. Not surprisingly, he used the initial four-year “temporary” grant of emergency powers that had been given to him by the Enabling Act to consolidate his omnipotent control over the entire country.

Accepting the new order

Oddly enough, even though his dictatorship very quickly became complete, Hitler returned to the Reichstag every four years to renew the “temporary” delegation of emergency powers that it had given him to deal with the Reichstag-arson crisis. Needless to say, the Reichstag rubber-stamped each of his requests.

For their part, the German people quickly accepted the new order of things. Keep in mind that the average non-Jewish German was pretty much unaffected by the new laws and decrees. As long as a German citizen kept his head down, worked hard, took care of his family, sent his children to the public schools and the Hitler Youth organization, and, most important, didn’t involve himself in political dissent against the government, a visit by the Gestapo was very unlikely.

Keep in mind also that, while the Nazis established concentration camps in the 1930s, the number of inmates ranged in the thousands. It wouldn’t be until the 1940s that the death camps and the gas chambers that killed millions would be implemented. Describing how the average German adapted to the new order, Shirer writes,

The overwhelming majority of Germans did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of culture had been destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work had become regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation.... The Nazi terror in the early years affected the lives of relatively few Germans and a newly arrived observer was somewhat surprised to see that the people of this country did not seem to feel that they were being cowed.... On the contrary, they supported it with genuine enthusiasm. Somehow it imbued them with a new hope and a new confidence and an astonishing faith in the future of their country.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

This article originally appeared in the March 2004 edition of Freedom Daily.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0403a.asp

Influenza A(H1N1) kill of the people

2009-05-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

About the disease
1 May 2009
How do people become infected with influenza A(H1N1)?
Outbreaks in humans are now occurring from human-to-human transmission. When infected people cough or sneeze, infected droplets get on their hands, drop onto surfaces, or are dispersed into the air. Another person can breathe in contaminated air, or touch infected hands or surfaces, and be exposed. To prevent spread, people should cover their mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing, and wash their hands regularly.

What are the signs and symptoms of infection?
Early signs of influenza A(H1N1) are flu-like, including fever, cough, headache, muscle and joint pain, sore throat and runny nose, and sometimes vomiting or diarrhoea.

Regarding study of the first outbreak, have you received any feedback from the WHO team sent to Mexico to investigate the outbreak?

Teams are already sending epidemiological evidence but we will know more over the next few days.

Is there any confirmation of transmission between pigs and humans at this point?

No.
Is there any information on the economic impact of the outbreak so far?

No.
Why are we so worried about this pandemic possibility when thousands die every year from seasonal epidemics?

Seasonal epidemics occur every year and we are able to treat the virus with seasonal vaccines. A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic. It is a new virus and one to which the populations will have no immunity.

Influenza A(H1N1) - update
6 May 2009 -- As of 06:00 GMT, 6 May 2009, 22 countries have officially reported 1516 cases of influenza A (H1N1) infection.
Mexico has reported 822 laboratory confirmed human cases of infection, including 29 deaths. The United States has reported 403 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death.

The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths - Austria (1), Canada (165), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Colombia (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (2), France (4), Germany (9), Guatemala (1), Ireland (1), Israel (4), Italy (5), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (6), Portugal (1), Republic of Korea (2), Spain (57), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (27).

Related links
Map of the spread of Infuenza A(H1N1): number of laboratory confirmed cases and deaths [jpg 416kb]
As of 6 May 2009, 06:00 GMT

Influenza A(H1N1) web site
Daily updates will be posted on this site.

It is considered prudent for people who are ill to delay international travel and for people developing symptoms following international travel to seek medical attention, in line with guidance from national authorities. Individuals are advised to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water on a regular basis and should seek medical attention if they develop any symptoms of influenza-like illness.
WHO advises no restriction of regular travel or closure of borders.
There is no risk of infection from this virus from consumption of well-cooked pork and pork products.

Further information on the situation will be available on the WHO website on a regular basis.

Malin Kundang - An Indonesian Myth

2009-05-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

Malin Kundang
A long time ago, in a small village near the beach in West Sumatera, lived a woman and her son, Malin Kundang. Malin Kundang’s father had passed away when he was a baby, and he had to live hard with his mother.

Malin Kundang was a healthy, dilligent, and strong child. He usually went to the sea to catch fish, and brought it to his mother, or sold it in the town.
One day, when Malin Kundang was sailing as usual, he saw a merchant’s ship which was being raided by a small band of pirates. With his brave and power, Malin Kundang defeated the pirates. The merchant was so happy and asked Malin Kundang to sail with him. Malin Kundang agreed.

Many years later, Malin Kundang became a wealthty merchant, with a huge ship, loads of trading goods, many ship crews, and a beautiful wife. In his journey, his ship landed on a beach. The villagers reconigzed him, and the news ran fast in the town: Malin Kundang became a rich man and now he is here. His mother, in deepful sadnees after years of loneliness, ran to the beach to meet her beloved son again.

When the mother came, Malin Kundang, in front of his well dressed wife, his crews and his own gloriness, denied to meet that old, poor and dirty woman. For three times she begged Malin Kundang and for three times yelled at him. At last Malin Kundang said to her “Enough, old woman! I have never had a mother like you, a dirty and ugly peasant!” Then he ordered his crews to set sail.

Enraged, she cursed Malin Kundang that he would turn into a stone if he didn’t apologize. Malin Kundang just laughed and set sail. In the quiet sea, suddenly a thunderstorm came. His huge ship was wrecked and it was too late for Malin Kundang to apologized. He was thrown by the wave out of his ship, fell on a small island, and suddenly turned into stone.

Another Version
The legendary story is said to be originated here in Padang where the remains of “Batu Malin Kundang” is located.

Malin Kundang who hails from a poor family. Just like any other Minang men, Malin Kundang decided to travel elsewhere to seek good fortune, leaving behind his old mother. His life changed when he married the daughter of a rich man in Siam. Soon after achieving success and gaining great fortune he sailed back homeward on his own ship to Padang together with his wife and crews.

Upon hearing of Malin Kundang’s return, his mother rushed to the beach to meet her long lost son. Unfortunately, Malin Kundang felt ashamed upon looking at his old and poor mother - he was a rich man with fine clothing and a beautiful wife while his mother was looking ragged and poor as she was. In his undisguised disgust he ignored his mother, refused to greet her and returned to his ship.

Humiliated and heartbroken by her arrogant son’s behavior, his mother fell to her knees in desperation and prayed to God asking that her son be punished for what he did. Soon a terrible storm rose up and Malin Kundang’s ship was wrecked upon the rocks. Realising his mistake and sin for ignoring his mother, the badly injured Malin Kundang tried to get ashore to seek forgiveness from his mother but as he crawled on his hands and knees he was suddenly turned into stone.

Until today, a stone that from a certain angle resembles the figure of a man on his hands and knees with his head seemingly buried in the rock can still be found here in Pantai Air Manis. It is said that Malin Kundang has been forced to stay on the beach forever, begging for forgiveness from his mother. Around this rocky figure barrels and ropes have been carved into the stone to represent the shipwreck washed up on the shore. The tale of an ungratefull son makes the tranquil Pantai Air Manis a legendary location to visit that may offer some lesson in life.

Seminar Nasional Pendidikan

2009-04-18T02:08:00.000-07:00

“Mengukir Kembali Makna Kebangkitan Nasional Dalam Pendidikan”

DASAR PEMIKIRAN
101 Tahun sudah hari Kebangkitan Nasional diperingati dengan sesuatu yang sifatnya seremonial belaka, usaha-usaha perbaikan di berbagai sektor belum memperlihatkan perbaikan yang signifikan, hasilnya bangsa ini masih belum mampu bangkit dari keterpurukan yang selama ini membelenggu. Kemiskinan, kelaparan, kebodohan serta berbagai pemandangan yang memprihatinkan seolah tidak pernah lepas dari potret masyarakat negeri ini.

Dalam bidang pendidikan 101 tahun hari kebangkitan nasional memiliki makna yang mendalam dimana 101 tahun yang lalu Budi Utomo membawakan setitik cahaya ditengah kegelapan bangsa ini yang terbodohkan akibat penjajahan yang begitu panjang oleh kaum penjajah, sejak saat itulah tekad untuk bangkit dari keterpurukan terhujam dalam jiwa setiap anak bangsa negeri ini. Hal tersebut merupakan salah satu gambaran bahwa pendidikan merupakan sektor yang sangat menentukan untuk menuju kebangkitan suatu bangsa dari keterpurukan akibat semua bentuk keterjajahan. Banyak contoh yang bisa kita jadikan cerminan dimana sektor pendidikan memiliki kontribusi besar dalam kebangkitan suatu bangsa, Negara Jepang dapat bangkit dari keterpurukan akibat di bom atom oleh sekutu, akhirnya bisa bangkit serta maju seperti saat ini. Salah satu penyebabnya adalah begitu perhatiannya pemimpin saat itu untuk mengutamakan sektor pendidikan sebagai Leading Sektor dalam usaha untuk membangkitkan sebuah bangsa dari keterpurukan.

Sektor pendidikan seolah luput dari perhatian para pemegang kebijakan di negeri ini, yang seharusnya mendapatkan perhatian yang baik dari para pemegang kebijakan di negeri ini. Dimulai dari anggaran pendidikan yang sampai saat ini belum sesuai dengan konstitusi, kesejahteraan guru yang belum terperhatikan, banyaknya angka putus sekolah, belum meratanya sarana dan prasarana yang menunjang, sulitnya pendidikan diakses secara merata oleh seluruh masyarakat hingga permasalahan seringkalinya kebijakan-kebijakan para pemimpin bangsa ini yang justru menjadikan terhambatnya perkembangan sektor pendidikan di negara ini.

Potret yang memprihatinkan yang telah digambarkan di atas bukan untuk mengarahkan pada sebuah pesimisme dari sebuah perjuangan, namun diharapkan bisa menjadi sebuah lecutan semangat untuk kita semua bahu membahu bangkit dari keterpurukan yang melanda negeri ini. Dari acara Seminar Nasional Pendidikan ini diharapkan bukan hanya menghasilkan terpaparkanya permasalahan yang terjadi pada sektor pendidikan namun dapat terhasilkannya sebuah solusi penyelesaian dari permasalahan-permasalahan yang ada, sehingga kita semua –Bangsa Indonesia- dapat memberikan sebuah kontribusi untuk menuju kebangkitan Indonesia dalam pendidikan.

LANDASAN KEGIATAN
Landasan Pemikiran
Tri Dharma Perguruan Tinggi
- Pendidikan
- Penelitian
- Pengabdian

Landasan Operasional
- PP Nomor 60 Tentang Perguruan Tinggi Negeri
- KepMenDikBud RI No.155 Tentang Pedoman Umum Organisasi Kemahasiswaan di Perguruan Tinggi
- UU No. 20 Tahun 2003 Tentang Sistem Pendidikan Nasional
- UU Guru dan Dosen
- GBPK HIMAS Periode 2008-2009
- Program Kerja HIMAS Periode 2008-2009

TUJUAN DAN TARGET KEGIATAN
TUJUAN
- Merefleksikan makna Kebangkitan Nasional dalam membangkitkan pendidikan nasional
- Mengetahui serta memahami permasalahan-permasalahan sektor pendidikan nasional
- Menyatukan persepsi dari elemen-elemen yang fokus terhadap permasalahan pendidikan untuk bersama-sama bergerak dalam mengontrol kebijakan-kebijakan pemerintah untuk sektor pendidikan
- Memberikan pemahaman kepada khalayak umum mengenai kebijakan pemerintah dalam hal implementasi anggaran pendidikan 20 %.

TARGET
- Terpaparkannya permasalahan-permasalahan faktual dalam sektor pendidikan nasional
- Dari pemaparan yang telah dilakukan peserta diharapkan memiliki penilaian terhadap kondisi sektor pendidikan nasional saat ini

NAMA KEGIATAN
SEMINAR NASIONAL PENDIDIKAN

TEMA KEGIATAN
Tema dari kegiatan ini adalah:
“Mengukir Kembali Makna Kebangkitan Nasional Dalam Pendidikan”

SASARAN KEGIATAN
- Mahasiswa UPI
- Guru se-Jawa Barat dan luar Jawa Barat
- Elemen-elemen pemerhati pendidikan

WAKTU DAN TEMPAT
Waktu : 14 Mei 2009
Tempat : Balai Pertemuan Umum (BPU) UPI

AGENDA ACARA SEMINAR NASIONAL
“Mengukir Kembali Makna Kebangkitan Nasional Dalam Pendidikan”
Kamis, 14 Mei 2009

Seminar Sessi Pertama
Tema : Kebangkitan Nasional Pendidikan
1. Makna Kebangkitan Nasional Bagi Pendidikan Indonesia: Sebuah Refleksi Terhadap Mutu Pendidikan
Pemateri : Asviwarman Adam (Peneliti LIPI)
2. Upaya Pemerintah Dalam Mengaktualisasikan Makna Kebangkitan Nasional dalam Pendidikan
Pemateri : Menteri Pendidikan Nasional*
3. Realitas Mutu Pendidikan Indonesia Dewasa ini
Pemateri : DR. Yudi Krisnandi ME (Anggota DPR RI)
Seminar Sessi Kedua
Tema : Implementasi Anggaran Pendidikan 20% antara Harapan dan Tantangan
1. Implementasi Anggaran Pendidikan 20% untuk Meningkatkan mutu Pendidikan
Pemateri :Dirjen Dikdasmen*
2. Inovasi Pembelajaran Sebagai Tuntutan Bagi Guru Terhadap Realisasi Anggaran Pendidikan 20%
Pemateri : Dr. Dadang Supardan, M.Pd.
3. Realitas Implementasi Anggaran Pendidikan 20% Antara Harapan dan Tuntutan
Pemateri : Suparman (Ketua FGII)

Biaya pendaptaran peserta:
Mahasiswa UPI Rp 50.000/orang
Mahasiswa luar UPI Rp 75.000/orang
Umum Rp 100.000/orang

KETERANGAN
1. Untuk pembayaran dapat dilakukan melalui :
BNI Cabang UPI
Jalan Dr. Setiabudi 229 Bandung 40154
No Rekening 0119283790 a.n Nuri Pramita Widya

2. Untuk informasi lebih lanjut dapat menghubungi
Sekretariat SEMINAR NASIONAL PENDIDIKAN
Gedung Olahraga (Gedor) UPI
Jl. Setiabudhi 229 Bandung 40154
Cp : 08172388986 (Deny) - 085659355663 (M. Sobar) – 085724062490 (Asep)
Facebook: rastulang@yahoo.com

Prambanan, the Most Beautiful Hindu Temple in the World

2009-04-18T01:55:00.000-07:00

The Most Beautiful Hindu Temple in the World

Prambanan temple is extraordinarily beautiful building constructed in the tenth century during the reigns of two kings namely Rakai Pikatan and Rakai Balitung. Soaring up to 47 meters (5 meters higher than Borobudur temple), the foundation of this temple has fulfilled the desire of the founder to show Hindu triumph in Java Island. This temple is located 17 kilometers from the city center, among an area that now functions as beautiful park.

There is a legend that Javanese people always tell about this temple. As the story tells, there was a man named Bandung Bondowoso who loved Roro Jonggrang. To refuse his love, Jonggrang asked Bondowoso to make her a temple with 1,000 statues only in one-night time. The request was nearly fulfilled when Jonggrang asked the villagers to pound rice and to set a fire in order to look like morning had broken. Feeling to be cheated, Bondowoso who only completed 999 statues cursed Jonggrang to be the thousandth statue.

Prambanan temple has three main temples in the primary yard, namely Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva temples. Those three temples are symbols of Trimurti in Hindu belief. All of them face to the east. Each main temple has accompanying temple facing to the west, namely Nandini for Shiva, Angsa for Brahma, and Garuda for Vishnu. Besides, there are 2 flank temples, 4 kelir temples and 4 corner temples. In the second area, there are 224 temples.

Entering Shiva temple, the highest temple and is located in the middle, you will find four rooms. One main room contains Shiva statue, while the other three rooms contain the statues of Durga (Shiva's wife), Agastya (Shiva's teacher), and Ganesha (Shiva's son). Durga statue is said to be the statue of Roro Jonggrang in the above legend.

In Vishnu temple, to the north of Shiva temple, you will find only one room with Vishnu statue in it. In Brahma temple, to the south of Shiva temple, you find only room as well with Brahma statue in it.

Quite attractive accompanying temple is Garuda temple that is located close to Vishnu temple. This temple keeps a story of half-bird human being named Garuda. Garuda is a mystical bird in Hindu mythology. The figure is of golden body, white face, red wings, with the beak and wings similar to eagle's. It is assumed that the figure is Hindu adaptation of Bennu (means 'rises' or 'shines') that is associated with the god of the Sun or Re in Old Egypt mythology or Phoenix in Old Greek mythology. Garuda succeeded in saving his mother from the curse of Aruna (Garuda's handicapped brother) by stealing Tirta Amerta (the sacred water of the gods).

Its ability to save her mother made many people admire it to the present time and it is used for various purposes. Indonesia uses the bird as the symbol of the country. Other country using the same symbol is Thailand, with the same reason but different form adaptation and appearance. In Thailand, Garuda is known as Krut or Pha Krut.

Prambanan also has panels of relief describing the story of Ramayana. Experts say that the relief is similar to the story of Ramayana that is told orally from generation to generation. Another interesting relief is Kalpataru tree that - in Hindu - the tree is considered tree of life, eternity and environment harmony. In Prambanan, relief of Kalpataru tree is described as flanking a lion. The presence of this tree makes experts consider that Javanese society in the ninth century had wisdom to manage its environment.

Just like Garuda, Kalpataru tree is also used for various purposes. In Indonesia, Kalpataru is used as the logo of Indonesian Environment Institution. Some intellectuals in Bali even develop "Tri Hita Karana" concept for environment conservation by seeing Kalpataru relief in this temple. This tree of life is also seen in the gunungan (the puppet used as an opening of traditional puppet show or wayang kulit). This proves that relief panels in Prambanan have been widely known throughout the world.

If you see the relief in detail, you will see many birds on them; they are real birds as we can see on the earth right now. Relief panels of such birds are so natural that biologists can identify their genus. One of them is the relief of the Yellow-Crest Parrot (Cacatua sulphurea) that cites unanswered question. The reason is that the bird only exists in Masakambing Island, an island in the middle of Java Sea. Then, did the bird exist in Yogyakarta? No body has succeeded in revealing the mystery.

You can discover many more things in Prambanan. You can see relief of Wiracarita Ramayana based on oral tradition. If you feel tired of enjoying the relief, you can take a rest in the beautiful garden in the complex. Since 18 September 2006, you can enter zone 1 area of Prambanan temple. The damage caused by the earthquake on 27 May 2006 is being reconstructed. Please come and enjoy Prambanan temple.

Beautiful of Borobudur Stupa, Java, Indonesia

2009-04-18T01:41:00.000-07:00

Borobudur Stupa, Java, Indonesia

Sometime before the 5th century AD, the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism spread southward from the mainland of southeast Asia to the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and a few others in the archipelago currently called Indonesia. (It is misleading to think of all of Indonesia as either an ancient empire or the province of any particular religion. The vast archipelago of over 13,000 islands became the nation of Indonesia only in 1949 and only a few of its major islands were ever settled or much influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam).

There are no archaeological remains of temples in the Indianized states of Java prior to the end of the seventh century as the early Hindu structures were built of wood and have long since decayed in the moist tropic climate. The first stone temples, Shiva shrines constructed during the eighth century, are found high on the Dieng plateau, the name Dieng meaning 'the place of the gods'. The greatest concentration of Javanese sacred architecture, however, lies on the plain of Kedu, some 42 kilometers north-west of the present city of Yogyakarta. Here stands the beautiful Hindu temple complex of Prambanam and the world famous Hindu/Buddhist temple of Borobudur.

Borobudur, a name deriving from an expression meaning 'Mountain of accumulation of merits of the ten states of Bodhisattva' is commonly thought of as a Buddhist structure, yet its initial construction was planned and conducted by Hindu builders sometime around 775AD. The enormous first and second terraces were completed by a declining Hindu dynasty, construction was then halted for some years, and later, from 790 to 835 AD, the Buddhist Sailendra dynasty continued and finally completed the great stupa. The huge stone mass might have then been permanently abandoned, for it was difficult to adapt to the needs of Buddhism. However, leaving in evidence such an obvious manifestation of Hinduism was probably not deemed politically correct and thus the unfinished Shiva temple was transformed into the world's largest Buddhist stupa.

After 832 AD the Hindu dynasty of Sanjaya began to reunify central Java and soon reappropriated the Buddhist monuments built by the Sailendra. Although the Sanjaya were themselves Hindu, they ruled over a Buddhist majority and thus, while some Hindu modifications and ornamentations were done on Borobudur, the stupa remained a place of Buddhist use. During the 10th and 11th centuries there was a transfer of power from central Java to the east, and the great stupa fell into decline. For centuries the site lay forgotten, buried under layers of volcanic ash and jungle growth. In 1815 Europeans cleared the site, in the early 1900's the Dutch began its restoration, and a US$21 million project begun in 1973 completed the work.

The Borobudur stupa is a massive, symetrical monument, 200 square meters in size, sitting upon a low sculptured hill. The monument represents a Buddhist cosmological model of the universe organized around the axis of mythical Mt. Meru. Starting at the eastern gateway, pilgrims circumambulate the stupa, always in a clockwise direction. Walking through nearly five kilometers of open air corridors while ascending through six square terraces and three circular ones, the pilgrim symbolically spirals upward from the everyday world to the nirvanic state of absolute nothingness. The first six terraces are filled with richly decorated relief panels in which the sculptors have carved a textbook of Buddhist doctrines and a fascinating panorama of 9th century Javanese life. Upon the upper three terraces are 72 small stupas, each containing a statue of the Buddha (these statues are usually headless; relic hunters stole many of the heads, others are in museums). Crowning the entire structure is a great central stupa. Representing Nirvana, it is empty.

Bush The Killer Diagnosed as Crazy

2009-04-18T01:30:00.000-07:00

Bush Diagnosed as Crazy
Comment by Larry Ross, January 1, 2006

Over 3 years ago, when this article was written, Bush was diagnosed as a dry alcoholic, with probably permanent damage to his brain cells and thinking processes due to at least 20 years of hard drinking.
All the symptoms of crazy, twisted thinking and refusal to consider constructive criticism of what he wants to do, are evidence of serious mental problems. With his spoilt but distant upbringing, he believes he is entitled to do as he pleases. This is reinforced by his born-again Christian Fundamentalism. He believes he was chosen by God to lead the United States; that he gets advice from God; and that what he does is both inspired and sanctioned by God. He does not accept criticisms of this doctrine.

Within this belief system, delusional though it may be, any lie and any crime is okay if it facilitates God's will. They are not really crimes. The U.S. Constitution and International law don't apply to Bush.(Bush's twisted and distorted reasoning is always interpreted as God's will and therefor divinely inspired his followers believe)

Remember that George Bush's God is a very angry and violent Old Testament God who demanded instant obedience and worship. He thought nothing of slaughtering his enemies on grounds that would be unacceptable today.

Bush, who follows this God, believes and does the same. The fact that he is still in office, is evidence that millions of Americans believe in the same God and belief systems. So Bush's crazy and potentially suicidal for humanity behaviour is "divinely sanctioned" some people think. That makes it okay, so they gave him a second term in 2004. (He got enough votes and was able to fake the rest).

What this shows is that many Americans can be quite comfortable with Bush and automatically forgive him his crimes, so long as their particular life is not too adversely affected. Their reality is only what happens to their own family, their pocket book, neighbourhood, sports, amusements,celebrities, etc. The mass media is mainly supportive of Bush lies, crimes and wars. They tell the people what to think and what not to think. That's what the people buy.

Even so, Bush's popularity has sunk to an all-time low. Americans are beginning to wake up, but not to the most frightening facts. The media is finding it more difficult to fool the public, distract them and cover-up for Bush. But his mental problems and deficiencies, extreme dangers to the world, and major crimes remain unexposed and not discussed. The mass media have ruled such topics out-of-bounds' so to speak.

Thus if another 9/11 (supposedly terrorist) event conveniently happens in 2006, most Americans will believe Bush's explanation, endlessly repeated by the mass media. His previous big lies to make war on Iraq, widely known, will be virtually forgotten.

A terrorist event would rescue Bush from the trash bin, facilitate his next war against Iran who he would blame (no proofs needed), and spur onward the neocon plan for global empire..

This article and others under Psychopathology of Bushism, present a comprehensive portrait of Bush's mental condition and symptoms.

I invite readers to circulate this and other articles as part of the effort to expose and stop Bush before it is too late.
Larry Ross

The Political Sutan Sjahrir (prime minister of Indonesia)

2009-04-18T01:14:00.000-07:00

SUTAN SJAHRIR, THE SMILING DIPLOMAT
Sjahrir, son of a public prosecutor, received a Dutch education in Sumatra and Java and attended the Law Faculty at the University of Leiden. In The Netherlands he was a member of a socialist student group and secretary of the student group Perhimpunan Indonesia (“Indonesian Union”), which numbered among its members many of Indonesia’s future political leaders. He returned to the Dutch East Indies in 1931 and helped establish the Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia, a rival group to Partindo, the nationalist organization formed from remnants of the suppressed Partai Nasional Indonesia (“Indonesian Nationalist Party”), founded by Sukarno, the foremost Indonesian nationalist leader. The groups differed on the goals and means appropriate to nationalists, with Pendidikan opposed to Partindo’s concept of a united front of left-wing parties, and were divided by personal antagonisms as well.

Early in 1934 Sjahrir and Pendidikan’s coleader Mohammad Hatta were exiled by the Dutch authorities and remained isolated from Indonesian politics until the arrival of Japanese occupation forces in 1942. Sjahrir was opposed to the Japanese but chose to withdraw from public life rather than actively resist. He pressed for the country to declare independence before the Japanese surrender.

Sjahrir’s pamphlet “Perdjuangan Kita” (1945; “Our Struggle”) won for him the support of militant nationalists in the capital, as well as the office of prime minister in the postwar government at a time when executive power had been stripped from the president, then Sukarno, and given to the prime minister. That was done at Sjahrir’s instigation as he feared Sukarno’s cooperation with the Japanese would hurt the republic’s image in international opinion, on which the success of negotiations with the Dutch largely depended. Sjahrir negotiated the Linggadjati Agreement, under which the Dutch acknowledged Indonesia’s authority in Java and Sumatra.

His conciliatory policies were not in keeping with the temper of the times, however, and in February 1946 he had to resign briefly, and in June 1947 he was forced to resign permanently. He then became a member of the Indonesian delegation to the United Nations. In 1948 he formed a Socialist party, Partai Sosialis Indonesia (PSI), which opposed the Communist Party, but it failed to win popular support and was banned by Sukarno in 1960. On Jan. 17, 1962, Sjahrir was arrested on charges of conspiracy. He was held without trial until 1965, when he was allowed to travel to Switzerland for medical treatment following a stroke.

TAN MALAKA THE LEGEND MAN

2009-04-18T00:53:00.000-07:00

GERILYAWAN REVOLUSIONER YANG LEGENDARIS

Tan Malaka –lengkapnya Ibrahim Datuk Tan Malaka—menurut keturunannya ia termasuk suku bangsa Minangkabau. Pada tanggal 2 Juni 1897 di desa Pandang Gadang –Sumatra Barat—Tan Malaka dilahirkan. Ia termasuk salah seorang tokoh bangsa yang sangat luar biasa, bahkan dapat dikatakan sejajar dengan tokoh-tokoh nasional yang membawa bangsa Indonesia sampai saat kemerdekaan seperti Soekarno, Hatta, Syahrir, Moh.Yamin dan lain-lain.

Pejuang yang militan, radikal dan revolusioner ini telah banyak melahirkan pemikiran-pemikiran yang orisinil, berbobot dan brilian hingga berperan besar dalam sejarah perjaungan kemerdekaan Indonesia. Dengan perjuangan yang gigih maka ia mendapat julukan tokoh revolusioner yang legendaris. Pada tahun 1921 Tan Malaka telah terjun ke dalam gelanggang politik. Dengan semangat yang berkobar dari sebuah gubuk miskin, Tan Malaka banyak mengumpulkan pemuda-pemuda komunis.Pemuda cerdas ini banyak juga berdiskusi dengan Semaun (wakil ISDV) mengenai pergerakan revolusioner dalam pemerintahan Hindia Belanda. Selain itu juga merencanakan suatu pengorganisasian dalam bentuk pendidikan bagi anggota-anggota PKI dan SI (Syarekat Islam) untuk menyusun suatu sistem tentang kursus-kursus kader serta ajaran-ajaran komunis, gerakan-gerakan aksi komunis, keahlian berbicara, jurnalistik dan keahlian memimpin rakyat. Namun pemerintahan Belanda melarang pembentukan kursus- kursus semacam itu sehingga mengambil tindakan tegas bagi pesertanya.

Melihat hal itu Tan Malaka mempunyai niat untuk mendirikan sekolah-sekolah sebagai anak-anak anggota SI untuk penciptaan kader-kader baru. Juga dengan alasan pertama: memberi banyak jalan (kepada para murid) untuk mendapatkan mata pencaharian di dunia kapitalis (berhitung, menulis, membaca, ilmu bumi, bahasa Belanda, Melayu, Jawa dan lain-lain); kedua,
memberikan kebebasan kepada murid untuk mengikuti kegemaran (hobby) mereka dalam bentuk perkumpulan-perkumpulan; ketiga, untuk memperbaiki nasib kaum kromo (lemah/miskin). Untuk mendirikan sekolah itu, ruang rapat SI Semarang diubah menjadi sekolah, dan sekolah itu bertumbuh sangat cepat hingga sekolah itu semakin lama semakin besar.

Perjuangan Tan Malaka tidaklah hanya sebatas pada usaha mencerdaskan rakyat Indonesia pada saat itu, tapi juga pada gerakan-gerakan dalam melawan ketidakadilan seperti yang dilakukan para buruh terhadap pemerintahan Hindia Belanda lewat VSTP dan aksi-aksi pemogokan, disertai selebaran-selebaran sebagai alat propaganda yang ditujukan kepada rakyat agar rakyat dapat melihat adanya ketidakadilan yang diterima oleh kaum buruh.

Seperti dikatakan Tan Malaka pada apidatonya di depan para buruh “Semua gerakan buruh untuk mengeluarkan suatu pemogokan umum sebagai pernyataan simpati, apabila nanti menglami kegagalan maka pegawai yang akan diberhentikan akan didorongnya untuk berjuang dengan gigih dalam pergerakan revolusioner”. Pergulatan Tan Malaka dengan partai komunis di dunia sangatlah jelas. Ia tidak hanya mempunyai hak untuk memberi usul-usul dan dan mengadakan kritik tetapi juga hak untuk mengucapkan vetonya atas aksi-aksi yang dilakukan partai komunis di daerah kerjanya. Tan Malaka juga harus mengadakan pengawasan supaya anggaran dasar, program dan taktik dari Komintern (Komunis Internasional) dan Profintern seperti yang telah ditentukan di kongres-kongres Moskow diikuti oleh kaum komunis dunia.

Dengan demikian tanggung-jawabnya sebagai wakil Komintern lebih berat dari keanggotaannya di PKI. Sebagai seorang pemimpin yang masih sangat muda ia meletakkan tanggung jawab yang saangat berat pada pundaknya. Tan Malaka dan sebagian kawan-kawannyamemisahkan diri dan kemudian memutuskan hubungan dengan PKI, Sardjono-Alimin-Musso. Pemberontakan 1926 yang direkayasa dari Keputusan Prambanan yang berakibat bunuh diri bagi perjuangan nasional rakyat Indonesia melawan penjajah waktu itu.

Pemberontakan 1926 hanya merupakan gejolak kerusuhan dan keributan kecil di beberapa daerah di Indonesia. Maka dengan mudah dalam waktu singkat pihak penjajah Belanda dapat mengakhirinya. Akibatnya ribuan pejuang politik ditangkap dan ditahan. Ada yang disiksa, ada yang dibunuh dan banyak yang dibuang ke Boven Digul Irian Jaya. Peristiwa ini dijadikan dalih oleh Belanda untuk menangkap, menahan dan membuang setiap orang yang melawan mereka, sekalipun bukan PKI. Maka perjaungan nasional mendapat pukulan yang sangat berat dan mengalami kemunduran besar serta lumpuh selama bertahun-tahun.

Tan Malaka yang berada di luar negeri pada waktu itu,berkumpul dengan beberapa temannya di Bangkok. Di ibukota Thailand itu, bersama Soebakat dan Djamaludddin Tamin, Juni 1927 Tan Malaka memproklamasikan berdirinya Partai Republik Indonesia (PARI). Dua tahun sebelumnya Tan Malaka telah menulis “Menuju Republik Indonesia”. Itu ditunjukkan kepada para pejuang intelektual di Indonesia dan di negeri Belanda. Terbitnya buku itu pertama kali di Kowloon, Cina, April 1925. Prof. Moh. Yamin sejarawan dan pakar hukum kenamaan kita, dalam karya tulisnya “Tan Malaka Bapak Republik Indonesia” memberi komentar: “Tak ubahnya daripada Jefferson Washington merancangkan Republik Amerika Serikat sebelum kemerdekaannya tercapai atau Rizal Bonifacio meramalkan Philippina sebelum revolusi Philippina pecah….”

Ciri khas gagasan Tan Malaka adalah: (1) Dibentuk dengan cara berpikir ilmiah berdasarkan ilmu bukti, (2) Bersifat Indonesia sentris, (3) Futuristik dan (4) Mandiri, konsekwen serta konsisten. Tan Malaka menuangkan gagasan-gagasannya ke dalam sekitar 27 buku, brosur dan ratusan artikel di berbagai surat kabar terbitan Hindia Belanda. Karya besarnya “MADILOG” mengajak dan memperkenalkan kepada bangsa Indonesia cara berpikir ilmiah bukan berpikir secara kaji atau hafalan, bukan secara “Text book thinking”, atau bukan dogmatis dan bukan doktriner. Madilog merupakan istilah baru dalam cara berpikir, dengan menghubungkan ilmu bukti serta mengembangkan dengan jalan dan metode yang sesuai dengan akar dan urat kebudayaan Indonesia sebagai bagian dari kebudayaan dunia. Bukti adalah fakta dan fakta adalah lantainya ilmu bukti. Bagi filsafat, idealisme yang pokok dan pertama adalah budi (mind), kesatuan, pikiran dan penginderaan. Filsafat materialisme menganggap alam, benda dan realita nyata obyektif sekeliling sebagai yang ada, yang pokok dan yang pertama.

Bagi Madilog (Materialisme, Dialektika, Logika) yang pokok dan pertama adalah bukti, walau belum dapat diterangkan secara rasional dan logika tapi jika fakta sebagai landasan ilmu bukti itu ada secara konkrit, sekalipun ilmu pengetahuan secara rasional belum dapat enjelaskannya dan belum dapat menjawab apa, mengapa dan bagaimana. Semua karya Tan Malaka danpermasalahannya dimulai dengan Indonesia. Konkritnya rakyat Indonesia, situasi dan kondisi nusantara serta kebudayaan, sejarah lalu diakhiri dengan bagaimana mengarahkan pemecahan masalahnya.

Cara tradisi nyata bangsa Indonesia dengan latar belakang sejarahnya bukanlah cara berpikir yang “text book thinking” dan untuk mencapai Republik Indonesia sudah dicetuskan sejak tahun 1925 lewat “Naar de Republiek Indonesia”. Jika kita membaca karya-karya Tan Malaka yang meliputi semua bidang kemasyarakatan, kenegaraan, politik,ekonomi, sosial, kebudayaan sampai kemiliteran(“Gerpolek”-Gerilya-Politik dan Ekonomi, 1948), maka akan kita temukan benang putih keilmiahan dan keIndonesiaan serta benang merah kemandirian, sikap konsekwen dan konsisten yang direnda jelas dalam gagasan-gagasan serta perjuangan implementasinya.Peristiwa 3 Juli 1946 yang didahului dengan penangkapan dan penahanan Tan Malaka bersama pimpinan Persatuan Perjuangan, di dalam penjara tanpa pernah diadili selama dua setengah tahun.

Setelah meletus pemberontakan FDR/PKI di Madiun, September 1948 dengan pimpinan Musso dan Amir Syarifuddin, Tan Malaka dikeluarkan begitu saja dari penjara akibat peristiwa itu. Di luar, setelah mengevaluasi situasi yang amat parah bagi republik Indonesia akibat Perjanjian Linggarjati 1947 dan Renville 1948, yang merupakan buah dari hasil diplomasi Syahrir dan Perdana Menteri AmirSyarifuddin, Tan Malaka merintis pembentukan Partai MURBA, 7 November 1948 di Yogyakarta. Dan pada tahun 1949 tepatnya bulan Februari Tan Malaka gugur, hilang tak tentu rimbanya, mati tak tentu kuburnya ditengah-tengah perjuangan “Gerilya Pembela Proklamasi” di Pethok, Kediri, Jawa Timur. Namun berdasarkan keputusan Presiden RI No. 53, yang ditandatangani Presiden Sukarno 28 Maret 1963 menetapkan bahwa Tan Malaka adalah seorang pahlawan kemerdekaan Nasional. (Bek)
BERGELAP-GELAPLAH DALAM TERANG, BERTERANG-TERANGLAH DALAM GELAP ! (TAN MALAKA)

Tan Malaka (1922) Communism and Pan-Islamism

2009-04-18T00:45:00.001-07:00

This is a speech made by the Indonesian Marxist Tan Malaka at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in November 12, 1922. Taking issue with the theses drafted by Lenin and adopted at the Second Congress, which had emphasised the need for a "struggle against Pan-Islamism", Tan Malaka argued for a more positive approach. Tan Malaka (1897-1949) was elected chairman of the Communist Party of Indonesia in 1921, but the following year he was forced to leave the East Indies by the colonial authorities. After the proclamation of independence in August 1945, he returned to Indonesia to participate in the struggle against Dutch colonialism. He became a leader of the Partai Murba (Proletarian Party), formed in 1948 to organise working class opposition to the Soekarno government. In February 1949 Tan Malaka was captured by the Indonesian army and executed.

Comrades! After hearing the speeches made by General Zinoviev, General Radek and other European comrades, and having regard to the importance, for us in the East as well, of the question of the united front, I think that I have to speak up, in the name of the Communist Party of Java, for the thousands of millions of the oppressed peoples of the East.

I have to put a few questions to the two generals. Perhaps General Zinoviev was not thinking about a united front on Java; perhaps our united front is something different. But the decision of the Second Congress of the Communist International means in practice that we have got to form a united front with revolutionary nationalism. Given, as we must recognise, that forming a united front is necessary in our country too, our united front cannot be with Social Democrats but has to be with revolutionary nationalists. But tactics used by the nationalists against imperialism very often differ from ours; take, for instance, the boycott and the Muslim liberation struggle, Pan-Islamism. These are the two forms which I am particularly considering, so I ask the following questions. First, are we to support the national boycott movement or not? Second, are we to support Pan-Islamism, yes or no? If yes, how far are we to go?

The boycott, I must admit, is certainly not a Communist method, but it is one of the sharpest weapons available in the situation of politico-military subjugation in the East. Within the last two years we have seen the success of the Egyptian people's 1919 boycott against British imperialism, and again of the great Chinese boycott at the end of 1919 and the beginning of 1920. The most recent boycott movement has been in British India. We can take it that in the next few years other forms of boycott will be employed in the East. We know that it is not our method; it is a petty bourgeois method, something that belongs to the nationalist bourgeoisie. We can say more; that the boycott means support for home-grown capitalism; but we have also seen that following on the boycott movement in British India, there are now eighteen hundred leaders languishing in jail, that the boycott has generated a very revolutionary atmosphere, indeed that the boycott movement actually forced the British government to ask Japan for military assistance, in case it should develop into an armed uprising. We also know that the Mahommedan leaders in India - Dr. Kirchief, Hasret Mahoni and the Ali brothers - are in reality nationalists; we had no rising to record when Gandhi was arrested. But people in India know very well what every revolutionary there knows: that a local rising can only end in defeat, because we have no weapons or other military material there, hence the question of the boycott movement will, now or in the future, become a pressing one for us Communists. Both in India and in Java we are aware that many Communists are inclined to proclaim a boycott movement on Java, perhaps because Communist ideas emanating from Russia have been so long forgotten, or perhaps because there was such an unleashing of Communist feeling in British India as could challenge the whole movement. In any case we are faced with the question: Are we to support this tactic, yes or no? And how far can we go?

Pan-Islamism is a long story. First of all I will speak about our experiences in the East Indies where we have cooperated with the Islamists. We have in Java a very large organisation with many very poor peasants, the Sarekat Islam (Islamic League). Between 1912 and 1916 this organisation had one million members, perhaps as many as three or four million. It was a very large popular movement, which arose spontaneously and was very revolutionary.

Until 1921 we collaborated with it. Our party, consisting of 13,000 members, went into this popular movement and carried out propaganda there. In 1921 we succeeded in getting Sarekat Islam to adopt our programme. The Islamic League too agitated in the villages for control of the factories and for the slogan: All power to the poor peasants, all power to the proletarians! So Sarekat Islam made the same propaganda as our Communist Party, only sometimes under another name.

But in 1921 a split occurred as a result of clumsy criticism of the leadership of Sarekat Islam. The government through its agents in Sarekat Islam exploited this split, and it also exploited the decision of the Second Congress of the Communist International: Struggle against Pan-Islamism! What did they say to the simple peasants? They said: See, the Communists not only want to split, they want to destroy your religion! That was too much for a simple Muslim peasant. The peasant thought to himself: I have lost everything in this world, must I lose my heaven as well? That won’t do! This was how the simple Muslims thought. The propagandists among the government agents exploited this very successfully. So we had a split. [Chairman: Your time is up.]

I have come from the East Indies, and travelled for forty days. [Applause.]
The Sarekat-Islamists believe in our propaganda and remain with us in their stomachs, to use a popular expression, but in their hearts they remain with the Sarekat Islam, with their heaven. For heaven is something we cannot give them. Therefore, they boycotted our meetings and we could not carry on propaganda any more.
Since the beginning of last year we have worked towards re-establishing the link with Sarekat Islam. At our congress in December last year we said that the Muslims in the Caucasus and other countries, who cooperate with the Soviets and struggle against international capitalism, understand their religion better, and we also said that, if they want to make propaganda for their religion, they can do so, though they should not do it in meetings but in the mosques.

We have been asked at public meetings: Are you Muslims – yes or no? Do you believe in God – yes or no? How did we answer this? Yes, I said, when I stand before God I am a Muslim, but when I stand before men I am not a Muslim [loud applause], because God said there are many devils among men! [Loud applause.] Thus we inflicted a defeat on their leaders with the Qur’an in our hands, and at our congress last year we compelled the leaders of the Sarekat Islam, through their own members, to cooperate with us.

When a general strike broke out in March last year, the Muslim workers needed us, as we have the railwaymen under our leadership. The Sarekat Islam leaders said: You want to cooperate with us, so you must help us, too. Of course we went to them, and said: Yes, your God is powerful, but he has said that on this earth the railwaymen are more powerful! [Loud applause.] The railwaymen are God’s executive committee in this world. [Laughter.]

But this does not settle the question, and if we have another split we may be sure that the government agents will be there again with their Pan-Islamism. So the question of Pan-Islamism is a very immediate one.

But now one must first understand what the word Pan-Islamism really means. Once, it had a historical significance and meant that Islam must conquer the whole world, sword in hand, and that this must take place under the leadership of the Caliph, and the Caliph must be of Arabian origin. About 400 years after the death of Mohammed the Muslims split into three great states and thus the Holy War lost its significance for the entire Muslim world. It thus lost the meaning that, in the name of God, the Caliph and the Muslim religion should conquer the whole world, because the Caliph of Spain said, I am the true Caliph, I must carry the banner, and the Caliph of Egypt said the same, and the Caliph of Baghdad said, I am the real Caliph, since I am from the Arabian tribe of Quraish.

So Pan-Islamism no longer has its original meaning, but now has in practice an entirely different meaning. Today, Pan-Islamism signifies the national liberation struggle, because for the Muslims Islam is everything: not only religion, but also the state, the economy, food, and everything else. And so Pan-Islamism now means the brotherhood of all Muslim peoples, and the liberation struggle not only of the Arab but also of the Indian, the Javanese and all the oppressed Muslim peoples. This brotherhood means the practical liberation struggle not only against Dutch but also against English, French and Italian capitalism, therefore against world capitalism as a whole. That is what Pan-Islamism now means in Indonesia among the oppressed colonial peoples, according to their secret propaganda – the liberation struggle against the different imperialist powers of the world.

This is a new task for us. Just as we want to support the national struggle, we also want to support the liberation struggle of the very combative, very active 250 million Muslims living under the imperialist powers. Therefore I ask once again: Should we support Pan-Islamism, in this sense?
So I end my speech. (Lively applause).

Mao Zedong Dictator in Chinese

2009-04-17T08:26:00.001-07:00

Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
Chinese political leader, poet and statesman, founder of People's Republic of China. Mao Zedong's ideas varied between flexible pragmatism and utopian visions, exemplified in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.His literary production contains mainly speeches, essays and poems. Mao published some 40 poems written in classical tradition with political message.

As a poet Mao continued the tradition, in which educated people composed poetry simply as an accomplishment. His texts showed talent, and he did not use the most banal idioms familiar from the works of Communist writers of his own generation. However, it is possible that Mao did not write all the texts credited to him. In his early works, Mao showed the influence of Tang (618-907) and Sung (960-1127) poets. On his walk across the Middle Kingdom, he recorded its modern history and used the mystical past to to illuminate the present. In several poems he depicted the first battles of the peasant army and national events. After 1949 the poems became more meditative.
Worshiped by millions, Mao is also considered one of the 20th century most brutal dictators. It has been estimated that he was responsile for well over 70 million deaths.

Mao was born in the village of Shaoshan in the Hunan Province of China. At the age of six he began to work on his parents' farm. His father, Mao Jen-sheng, was a peasant farmer, who beat his sons regularly. Mao's mother, Wen Chi-mei, was a devout Buddhist. After graduating from a teacher's training in Changsha, Mao continued his studies at the University of Beijing, where he worked as an assistant at the library. Under the influence of Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, China's first major Marxist figures, Mao turned to Marxism. In 1921 Mao became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party. During Bertrand Russell's visit to Hunan, he argued for the legitimacy of seizing power by force against Russell's reformist views. In the 1920s he concentrated on political work in his native Province and Jianxi Province. His highly pragmatic strategy was one of the main influences on Fidel Castro, when in 1959 he was able to take over Cuba with Che Guevara.

"The people are like water and the army is like fish," Mao wrote in Aspects of China's Anti-Japanese Struggle (1948). He recognized the revolutionary potential of the peasantry. Marx and Lenin had seen in their urban doctrine the working class as the leading revolutionary force. However, when first articulated, Mao's views were rejected by the Party in favor of orthodox policy. Mao himself was also an exception to the rule: he was one of only three peasants to gain control of his country throughout its long history - the others were the founders of the Han and Ming dynasties.

Under Comitern policy of cooperating with the Nationalists, Mao held important posts with the Guomingdang. Following the Guomindang massacre of Communist in 1927, Mao established a base in Jiangxi Province. There he directed his first major purge against dissidents.

Mao's fourth wife Chiang Ch'ing (1914-1991) was an actor. She gained first fame in Shanghai among others in Ibsen's play A Doll's House. In 1933 she joined the Communist Party, meeting Mao in Yenan and marrying him. Mao was more than twenty years older than she and had eight children. During Cultural Revolution she became an enormous force, but after Mao's death she was imprisoned with her three radical associates Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan. The group was called the Gang of Four. It is told, that on the day of their arrest every wine shop in Beijing was sold out of alcohol. Chiang Ch'ing committed suicide in 1991.

After the break with the Nationalist Party, Mao started the guerrilla tactics, stating later that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." In 1934 the Nationalist government destroyed the Jiangxi Soviet, and the Communist forces started the legendary retreat and the Long March, an anabasis of 6,000 miles which has been compared to the march of Alexander the Great. In 1935 Mao's political power increased when he was elected Chairman of the Politburo. Mao's rural based guerrilla warfare led to the fall of the government. To fund the Red Army, Mao grew opium.
During World War II Mao did not fight the Japanese, but planned to divide China with Japan. The new People's Republic of China was proclaimed in 1949. The Communists were headed by Mao, who gained the upper hand over his Russian-backed adversaries. In 1949 Mao met Stalin, but after Nikita Khrushchev in his famous speech denounced Stalinism in 1956, China broke with Moscow. Stalin held Mao's son Anying hostage for for years. The "thaw" period in the Soviet Union (1955-64) was noted also in China and in 1956 Mao launched the slogan "let a hundred flowers bloom".

Mao's prestige was reinforced by his "Thought." He labelled the ideas of his opponents as "mechanical" or "dogmatic." "Be resourceful, look at all sides of a problem, test ideas by experiment, and work hard for the common good," Mao said. The basis of his ideology was Marxism-Leninism, but he adapted it to Chinese conditions, and partly he followed such CCP's theoreticians as Chen Boda and Ai Siqi. The support of the Communists among intellectuals also was rising. Zhang Dongsun, who was the most perceptive philosopher of the modern China, saw that Communists were China's only practical way out.

In his 'Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art' (1942, Tsai Yenan wen-i tso-t'an hui shang it chiang-hua) Mao issued a set of perspective guidelines for literature, in which he emphasized the status folk tradition and oral and performing literature. The novel of land reform were followed by novels on agricultural collectivization, the central theme of art at that time. Novelists also praised the Party, the revolution, and the people. Some writers dealt with the heroism of soldiers during the Korean war. In 1958 Mao started the "Great Leap Forward", industrial and agricultural program, which did not have the success he expected. He urged to construct backyard steel furnaces to gain the Western steel production. This unrealistic project was not without a certain good will, although results were tragic: about 30 million people died in the famine, when ill-trained peasants were forced to carry out the gigantic industrialization plan.

Following the disaster of the "Great Leap Forward", a new series of novels on communization appeared by authors with peasant backgrounds, among them Liu Quing and Hao Ran. The reading public was more drawn to a wave of historical novels celebrating the history of the communist revolution. Most notable were Luo Guangbin's and Yang Yiyan's works. Nevertheless, none of the new novels of socialist realism proved sufficiently politically correct to survive the censorship during the power struggle of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

By 1965 Mao feared that he was losing control. He appealed to the populace against the Party apparatus and consolidated again his power by the Cultural Revolution. Red Guards were formed in 1966 and sent into the countryside to force bureaucrats, professors, technicians, intellectuals, and other nonpeasants into rural work. In the vengeful outburst of hatred and ignorance, tens of thousands were murdered or forced to give up their jobs, and China's economy suffered. "A revolution is not the same as inviting people to dinner, or writing as essay, or painting a picture... A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another." Mao had said (from Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, 1965) The publishing of new books and the introduction of new ideas virtually stopped. Except for the works of the deceased Lu Xun, all modern works were banned. From 1966 for the following six years publication of art journals was suspended. Art schools were closed and artists disbanded. Large numbers of old temples and monuments were smashed or vandalized. In the end, the disorder was so bad that the army was called in to repress the Red Guards and other fractions. After the chaos, Mao decided open doors to the West. China's Relationship with the United States were strained, but in 1972 President Richard Nixon journeyed to China, and broke the ice. All practical negotiations were handled by Zhou Enlai and Henry Kissinger; at the meeting with Nixon, Mao kept the discussion on a fairly abstract level.

According to Mao's personal physician Zhisui Li (in The Private Life of Chairman Mao), the leader of China used heavily barbiturates although otherwise he was in excellent health. Later in life Mao developed paranoia; Li Zhisui mentions also Mao's aversion to bathing. His personal life became secretive and in many ways morally corrupt. Lin Biao, who was designated by Mao as his successor, died under mysterious circumstances in 1969. After Lin's fall, the prime minister Zhou Enlai was a moderator between the opposing camps of Liu Shaoqi and Mao. Zhou died in 1975, and the leadership of the moderates was taken over by Deng Xiaoping. Mao's death in 1976 broke his wife's hold on power. Mao had smoked cigarettes his whole life, and he had also suffered from bronchitis, pneumonia, and emphysema. Aaccording to some sources, Mao's last words were: "I feel ill; call the doctors."
Mao's ”The Little red Book” or Mao Zedong on People's War (1967) became in the 1960s the ultimate authority for political correctness. It was carried about by millions during "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" of 1968. The plastic-bound work, edited by the minister of defense, Lin Piao, consisted of quotations from several Mao's writings, among them Significance of Agrarian Reforms in China, Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War, On the Rectification of Incorrect Ideas in the Party, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People. Another compendium, also edited by Lin Piao, was entitled Long Live Mao Tse-Tung Thought.

Mao's conception of democracy was based on the leading role of the Communist party. Its the tightly disciplined organization would lead the masses. He was hostile to Confucianism, which he saw as the central ideology of China's past. Later in his career "The Great Helmsman" compared himself with Chin Shih-huang, the first Emperor, who unified China in 221 B.C.

For the most part, Mao's own philosophical work in the 1930s was summaries of Soviet texts. Two essays, 'On practice' and 'On contradiction' were printed in revised form in 1950 and 1952. These works were studied and emulated throughout China. Like Lenin, Mao made a distinction between antagonist and non-antagonist contradictions, but Mao's thought was partly derived from the Chinese system of yin and yang. He stated that contradictions would continue to arise in society even after socialist revolution. With this claim he supported his doctrine of permanent revolution, which was earlier launched by Trotsky. His success in guerrilla warfare led him to declare in 1947, that "the atom bomb is a paper tiger".

Mao's thoughts were also popular among Western intellectuals and radicals, who opposed "Soviet revisionism." American journalist E.P. Snow made Chinese Communist movement known already in the 1930s with his book Red Star Over China (1937). Snow's personal relationships with the leaders of China continued decades. He was granted permission travel in 1960 around the country. In his book The Other Side of the River Snow failed to report of China's 1959-61 famine, possibly the worst in history. Much of the grain which was produced in China during this period was traded for the Soviet weapons-technology. However, Mao's popularity has been enduring even after his death.

For further reading: Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (2005); Chinese Marxism by Adrian Chan (2003); Children's Literature in China: From Lu Xun to Mao Zedong by Mary Ann Farquhar (1999); Mao Zedong by Jonathan D. Spence (1999); China's Road to Disaster by Frederick C. Teiwes and Warren Sun (1998); The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written by Martin Seymour-Smith (1998); Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States by Michael M. Sheng (1998); Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine by Jasper Becker (1997); The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Zhisui Li (1996, paperback); Mao Zedong by Rebecca Stefoff (1996, for young adults); No Tears for Mao by Niu-Niu et al (1995); Burying Mao by Richard Baum (1994); China Without Mao by Immanuel C.Y. Hsu (1990); The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung by Stuart Schram (1989, paperback); Inheriting Tradition by K. Louie (1986); Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism by Maurice J. Meisner (1982); Chinese Thought, From Confucius to Mao Ts-E-Tung by Herrlee Glessner Glee (1971, paperback); Red Star over China by E.P. Snow (1937, rev. ed. 1968) - See also: Mao Tun - Suom.: Maolta on julkaistu runosuomennoksia antologiassa Itä on punainen. Muita käännöksiä: Mao Tse-tung; Runot (suom. Pertti Nieminen), essee- ja puhekokoelma Teoksia 1-2, Otteita puhemies Mao Tse-tungin teoksista, ”Punainen kirja” (1967)

Soekarno Best Presiden (Big Man From Big Nation)

2009-04-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

Soekarno dilahirkan dengan nama Kusno Sosrodihardjo. Ayahnya bernama Raden Sukemi Sosrodihardjo, seorang guru di Surabaya, Jawa. Ibunya berasal dari Bali.

Ketika kecil Soekarno tinggal bersama kakeknya di Tulungagung, Jawa Timur. Pada usia 14 tahun, seorang kawan bapaknya yang bernama Oemar Said Tjokroaminoto mengajak Soekarno tinggal di Surabaya dan disekolahkan ke Hoogere Burger School (H.B.S.) di sana sambil mengaji di tempat Tjokroaminoto. Di Surabaya, Soekarno banyak bertemu dengan para pemimpin Sarekat Islam, organisasi yang dipimpin Tjokroaminoto saat itu. Soekarno kemudian bergabung dengan organisasi Jong Java (Pemuda Jawa).

Tamat H.B.S. tahun 1920, Soekarno melanjutkan ke Technische Hoge School (sekarang ITB) di Bandung, dan tamat pada tahun 1925. Saat di Bandung, Soekarno berinteraksi dengan Tjipto Mangunkusumo dan Dr. Douwes Dekker, yang saat itu merupakan pemimpin organisasi National Indische Partij.

Pergerakan dan Semangat Nasionalisme
Pada tahun 1926, Soekarno mendirikan Algemene Studie Club di Bandung. Organisasi ini menjadi cikal bakal Partai Nasional Indonesia yang didirikan pada tahun 1927. Aktivitas Soekarno di PNI menyebabkannya ditangkap Belanda pada bulan Desember 1929, dan memunculkan pledoinya yang fenomenal: Indonesia Menggugat, hingga dibebaskan kembali pada tanggal 31 Desember 1931.

Pada bulan Juli 1932, Soekarno bergabung dengan Partai Indonesia (Partindo), yang merupakan pecahan dari PNI. Soekarno kembali ditangkap pada bulan Agustus 1933, dan diasingkan ke Flores. Di sini, Soekarno hampir dilupakan oleh tokoh-tokoh nasional. Namun semangatnya tetap membara seperti tersirat dalam setiap suratnya kepada seorang Guru Persatuan Islam bernama Ahmad Hassan. Soekarno baru kembali bebas pada masa penjajahan Jepang pada tahun 1942.

Pada awal masa penjajahan Jepang (1942-1945), pemerintah Jepang sempat tidak memperhatikan tokoh-tokoh pergerakan Indonesia terutama untuk “mengamankan” keberadaannya di Indonesia. Ini terlihat pada Gerakan 3A dengan tokohnya Shimizu dan Mr. Syamsuddin yang kurang begitu populer.

Namun akhirnya, pemerintahan pendudukan Jepang memperhatikan dan sekaligus memanfaatkan tokoh tokoh Indonesia seperti Soekarno, Mohammad Hatta dan lain-lain dalam setiap organisasi-organisasi dan lembaga lembaga untuk menarik hati penduduk Indonesia. Disebutkan dalam berbagai organisasi seperti Jawa Hookokai, Pusat Tenaga Rakyat (Putera), BPUPKI dan PPKI, tokoh tokoh seperti Soekarno, Hatta, Ki Hajar Dewantara, K.H Mas Mansyur dan lain lainnya disebut-sebut dan terlihat begitu aktif. Dan akhirnya tokoh-tokoh nasional bekerjasama dengan pemerintah pendudukan Jepang untuk mencapai kemerdekaan Indonesia, meski ada pula yang melakukan gerakan bawah tanah seperti Sutan Syahrir dan Amir Sjarifuddin karena menganggap Jepang adalah fasis yang berbahaya.

Presiden Soekarno sendiri, saat pidato pembukaan menjelang pembacaan teks proklamasi kemerdekaan, mengatakan bahwa meski sebenarnya kita bekerjasama dengan Jepang sebenarnya kita percaya dan yakin serta mengandalkan kekuatan sendiri.

Masa-Masa Kemerdekaan
Ia aktif dalam usaha persiapan kemerdekaan Indonesia, diantaranya adalah merumuskan Pancasila, UUD 1945 dan dasar dasar pemerintahan Indonesia termasuk merumuskan naskah proklamasi Kemerdekaan. Ia sempat dibujuk untuk menyingkir ke Rengasdengklok Peristiwa Rengasdengklok.

Pada tahun 1943, Perdana Menteri Jepang Hideki Tojo mengundang tokoh Indonesia yakni Soekarno, Mohammad Hatta dan Ki Bagoes Hadikoesoemo ke Jepang dan diterima langsung oleh Kaisar Hirohito. Bahkan kaisar memberikan Bintang kekaisaran (Ratna Suci) kepada tiga tokoh Indonesia tersebut. Penganugerahan Bintang itu membuat pemerintahan pendudukan Jepang terkejut, karena hal itu berarti bahwa ketiga tokoh Indonesia itu dianggap keluarga Kaisar Jepang sendiri. Pada bulan Agustus 1945, ia diundang oleh Marsekal Terauchi, pimpinan Angkatan Darat wilayah Asia Tenggara di Dalat Vietnam yang kemudian menyatakan bahwa proklamasi kemerdekaan Indonesia adalah urusan rakyat Indonesia sendiri.

Soekarno bersama tokoh-tokoh nasional mulai mempersiapkan diri menjelang Proklamasi kemerdekaan Republik Indonesia. Setelah sidang Badan Penyelidik Usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia BPUPKI,Panitia Kecil yang terdiri dari delapan orang (resmi), Panitia Kecil yang terdiri dari sembilan orang/Panitia Sembilan (yang menghasilkan Piagam Jakarta) dan Panitia Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia PPKI, Soekarno-Hatta mendirikan Negara Indonesia berdasarkan Pancasila dan UUD 1945. etelah menemui Marsekal Terauchi di Dalat, Vietnam, terjadilah Peristiwa Rengasdengklok pada tanggal 16 Agustus 1945; Soekarno dan Mohammad Hatta dibujuk oleh para pemuda untuk menyingkir ke asrama pasukan Pembela Tanah Air Peta Rengasdengklok. Tokoh pemuda yang membujuk antara lain Soekarni, Wikana, Singgih serta Chairul Saleh. Para pemuda menuntut agar Soekarno dan Hatta segera memproklamasikan kemerdekaan Republik Indonesia, karena di Indonesia terjadi kevakuman kekuasaan. Ini disebabkan karena Jepang sudah menyerah dan pasukan Sekutu belum tiba. Namun Soekarno, Hatta dan para tokoh menolak dengan alasan menunggu kejelasan mengenai penyerahan Jepang.

Alasan lain yang berkembang adalah Soekarno menetapkan moment tepat untuk kemerdekaan Republik Indonesia yakni dipilihnya tanggal 17 Agustus 1945 saat itu bertepatan dengan tanggal 17 Ramadhan, bulan suci kaum muslim yang diyakini merupakan tanggal turunnya wahyu pertama kaum muslimin kepada Nabi Muhammad SAW yakni Al Qur-an. Pada tanggal 18 Agustus 1945, Soekarno dan Mohammad Hatta diangkat oleh PPKI menjadi Presiden dan Wakil Presiden Republik Indonesia. Pada tanggal 29 Agustus 1945 pengangkatan menjadi presiden dan wakil presiden dikukuhkan oleh KNIP.Pada tanggal 19 September 1945 kewibawaan Soekarno dapat menyelesaikan tanpa pertumpahan darah peristiwa Lapangan Ikada dimana 200.000 rakyat Jakarta akan bentrok dengan pasukan Jepang yang masih bersenjata lengkap.

Kelahiran Indonesia bersama Soekarno
Presiden Soekarno juga banyak memberikan gagasan-gagasan di dunia Internasional. Keprihatinannya terhadap nasib bangsa Asia-Afrika, masih belum merdeka, belum mempunyai hak untuk menentukan nasibnya sendiri, menyebabkan presiden Soekarno, pada tahun 1955, mengambil inisiatif untuk mengadakan Konferensi Asia-Afrika di Bandung yang menghasilkan Dasa Sila. Bandung dikenal sebagai Ibu Kota Asia-Afrika. Ketimpangan dan konflik akibat “bom waktu” yang ditinggalkan negara-negara barat yang dicap masih mementingkan imperialisme dan kolonialisme, ketimpangan dan kekhawatiran akan munculnya perang nuklir yang merubah peradaban, ketidakadilan badan-badan dunia internasional dalam pemecahan konflik juga menjadi perhatiannya.

Bersama Presiden Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Mesir), Mohammad Ali Jinnah (Pakistan), U Nu, (Birma) dan Jawaharlal Nehru (India) ia mengadakan Konferensi Asia Afrika yang membuahkan Gerakan Non Blok. Berkat jasanya itu, banyak negara-negara Asia Afrika yang memperoleh kemerdekaannya. Namun sayangnya, masih banyak pula yang mengalami konflik berkepanjangan sampai saat ini karena ketidakadilan dalam pemecahan masalah, yang masih dikuasai negara-negara kuat atau adikuasa. Berkat jasa ini pula, banyak penduduk dari kawasan Asia Afrika yang tidak lupa akan Soekarno bila ingat atau mengenal akan Indonesia.

Guna menjalankan politik luar negeri yang bebas-aktif dalam dunia internasional, Presiden Soekarno mengunjungi berbagai negara dan bertemu dengan pemimpin-pemimpin negara. Di antaranya adalah Nikita Khruschev (Uni Soviet), John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Amerika Serikat), Fidel Castro (Kuba), Mao Tse Tung (RRT).

Masa-masa kejatuhan Soekarno dimulai sejak ia “bercerai” dengan W
akil Presiden Moh. Hatta, pada tahun 1956, akibat pengunduran diri Hatta dari kancah perpolitikan Indonesia. Ditambah dengan sejumlah pemberontakan separatis yang terjadi di seluruh pelosok Indonesia, dan puncaknya, pemberontakan G 30 S, membuat Soekarno di dalam masa jabatannya tidak dapat “memenuhi” cita-cita bangsa Indonesia yang makmur dan sejahtera.

Napoleon Bonaparte Pearl History in France

2009-04-17T07:44:00.000-07:00

Emperor of France
1769-1821

One of the most brilliant individuals in history, Napoleon Bonaparte was a masterful soldier, an unequalled grand tactician and a superb administrator. He was also utterly ruthless, a dictator and, later in his career, thought he could do no wrong.
Not a Frenchman by birth, Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio on Corsica - only just sold to France by the Italian state of Genoa - on 15 August 1769 and learnt French at the school of Autun and later the military academy at Brienne. He never fully mastered French and his spelling left a lot to be desired.

The revolutionary fever that was spreading when Bonaparte was a teenager allowed a talented individual the opportunity to rise far beyond what could have been achieved only a few years previously.

His first real military opportunity came as a captain of artillery at the siege of Toulon, where he expertly seized crucial forts and was able to bombard the British naval and land forces, eventually forcing them to sail away.

Now a brigadier-general, Bonaparte served in the army campaigning in Italy but found himself arrested and jailed for being an associate of the younger brother of Maximilien Robespierre.

With no position for him after his release, Bonaparte thought about joining the Turkish army and even joining a naval expedition to Australia, but became involved with a member of the Directory, Paul Barras, who used the young man's zeal to put down a royalist mob in 1795 with the now legendary "whiff of grapeshot".
With his loyalty and ruthlessness proven, the next year Bonaparte took up command of the Army of Italy and set off on a campaign that was to take him to absolute power in France and Europe.

Initially treated with suspicion, and not a little contempt, by the older generals he superceded, Bonaparte won over his badly treated soldiers with promises of great things to come and a large helping of personal bravery. Like Caesar, he was not afraid to get into the thick of the fighting to inspire his men.
In a series of battles that included such as Montenotte, Mondovi, Arcola and Rivoli, Bonaparte swept the board of ageing Austrian generals and established himself as one of the leading soldiers of his time.

Barack Obama is a Homosexual Crackhead

2009-04-15T11:15:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama is a Homosexual Crackhead
By Sisyphus
Looks like the Democrats are nominating only their finest representative, as usual.

The meteoric rise of US Presidential candidate Barack Obama may be headed for a crash landing, if charges of a homosexual tryst and crack-cocaine drug binge are proven to be true.

The shocking allegations, made by a Mr. Larry Sinclair, first appeared on a self-made YouTube video several weeks ago, shortly before the hotly-contested South Carolina primary. In the video, Mr. Sinclair alleges that back in 1999, when Mr. Obama was still a state representative, he smoked crack cocaine while receiving oral sex from Mr. Sinclair.

In an interview with talk radio show The Right Perspective, Mr. Sinclair says he was running drugs back in 1999, and was in Chicago “doing business”. “I wanted to meet someone who knew the city,” he said. Mr. Sinclair’s limo driver introduced the two, who hit it off immediately. After Mr. Obama scored cocaine for him, Mr. Sinclair’s “gaydar” went off and made a pass at Mr. Obama, who did not refuse. It was then when Mr. Sinclair allegedly performed oral sex on Mr. Obama. Mr. Sinclair also alleges that Mr. Obama smoked crack cocaine while receiving oral favors from Mr. Sinclair.
The following day, Mr. Sincalir alleges that Mr. Obama visited him at his hotel room for a “quickie,” where they did more cociaine and Mr. Sinclair performed oral sex on Mr. Obama for a second time.

Mr. Sinclair told The Right Perspective that he can prove his allegations, providing hotel receipts and the limousine driver who introduced him to Mr. Obama and whose limo the alleged scandal occurred. Mr. Sinclair can also provide details on Mr. Obama’s genitals, too. Mr. Sinclair believes Mr. Obama is an “on-the-down-low” closet case and is likely bisexual.

Mr. Sinclair believes that Mr. Obama’s honesty over the drug issue is the more important issue at stake, maintaining Mr. Obama’s revelation of drug use being firmly in the past is not true and that Mr. Obama has not stopped using cocaine.
Mr. Sinclair asserts that he has been trying to get word of his alleged tryst with Mr. Obama out since last Fall, and YouTube was a “last resort” after both MSNBC and The New York Post buried a story based on his claims, despite having verified them. “It’s like, anything [negative] you have on Obama is untouchable, it’s forbidden” and blames Obama campaign manager David Axelrod for engineering a media blackout on the story. Mr. Sinclair has threatened to sue David Axelrod, for running a “smear campaign” that attempts to tie Mr. Sinclair with a rival political campaign.

Heh heh heh. THIS is the man the Democrats want to send to the White House, a sodomite drug addict with little experience and a penchant for lying. Why is the MSM ignoring this story? Where is the Communist News Network’s reporting? Oh, wait.

But maybe it’s not so simple. Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics. (During the Clinton Administration we were all introduced to then U. of Pennsylvania Professor Lani Guinier — also a half black/half Jewish, red diaper baby.)

I don’t know how Barak Obama’s parents met. But the Kincaid article referenced above makes a very convincing case that Obama’s family, later, (mid 1970s) in Hawaii, had close relations with a known black Communist intellectual. And, according to what Obama wrote in his first autobiography, the man in question — Frank Marshall Davis — appears to have been Barack’s own mentor, and even a father figure. Of course, since the Soviet Union itself no longer exists, it’s an open question what it means practically to have been politically mentored by an official Communist. Ideologically, the implications are clearer.

Political correctness was invented precisely to prevent the mainstream liberal media from persuing the questions which might arise about how Senator Obama’s mother, from Kansas, came to marry an African graduate student. Love? Sure, why not? But what else was going on around them that made it feasible? Before readers level cheap accusations of racism — let’s recall that the very question of interracial marriage only became a big issue later in the 1960s. The notion of a large group of mixed race Americans became an issue during and after the Vietnam War. Even the civil-rights movement kept this culturally explosive matter at arm’s distance.
It was, of course, an explicit tactic of the Communist party to stir up discontent among American blacks, with an eye toward using them as the leading edge of the revolution. To be sure, there was much to be discontented about, for black Americans, prior to the civil-rights revolution. To their credit, of course, most black Americans didn’t buy the commie line — and showed more faith in the possibilities of democratic change than in radical politics, and the results on display in Moscow.

Time for some investigative journalism about the Obama family’s background, now that his chances of being president have increased so much.

Nevermind, they’d never turn on a fellow traveler. Like father, like son.
No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, if you don’t see Obama as a national disgrace, you’re probably one yourself. All Americans must do everything in their power to keep this man as far away from the White House as humanly possible. The FBI shouldn’t even allow him to visit there as a tourist. He’d probably end up getting arrested in the restroom for lewd conduct and drug abuse.

T-Shirt of Melayu (Baju Melayu)

2009-04-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

A traditional Baju Melayu worn with songket

Baju Melayu is a traditional Malay outfit for men. It literally translates as 'Malay shirt' and consists of two main parts. The first being the baju (long sleeved shirt) itself which has a raised stiff collar known as the cekak musang collar (literally fox's lease). The second part is the trousers. The two parts are made out of the same type of fabric which is usually silk, cotton, or a mixture of polyester and cotton. A skirt-type adornment is also commonly worn with the Baju Melayu, which is either the "kain samping", made out of songket cloth or the kain sarung, made out of cotton or a polyester mix. Both are loops of fabric which are folded around the wearer's waist. A jet-black or dark coloured headgear called the songkok can also worn to complete the attire.

In shirts made with the cekak musang collar, the placket of the baju will seem to form a third of the baju from the top when it is worn beneath the kain samping or kain sarung. However, the hem line of the baju actually runs to the middle of the lap. The placket typically has three to four buttonholes and is fastened together by dress studs called kancing which are not unlike those used in Western-style formal dress shirts. The studs usually have screw-in backs and can be made from a variety of materials including gold, silver and precious or semi-precious stones. The studs may also be connected with a light metal chain which will be concealed behind the shirt when the placket is fastened.

In the state of Johor, both the design and the wearing of Baju Melayu is somewhat different to that of other areas. Here, the kain samping or kain sarung is worn below the baju rather than above it. The baju itself does not have the cekak musang collar or any placket. Instead, the opening is hemmed with stiff stitching called tulang belut (literally eel's spine) and ends with a small loop at the top of one side to fit a singular kancing (similar to the collars of Baju Kurung worn by women). This style is known as the Teluk Belanga style and is said to be designed by Sultan Abu Bakar himself as a remembrance of the move of Johor's administrative capital from Teluk Belanga in Singapore to Tanjung Puteri in 1866 (today it is known as Johor Bahru).

A black Baju Melayu with a black kain samping embroidered with gold thread is considered a form of formal dress, and is the official attire required during official national events, especially highly formal ones like the official celebration of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong's birthday. Malaysian ambassadors presenting their credentials to foreign heads of state are also required to wear the black Baju Melayu. The white Baju Melayu is worn by Malaysian royalty when mourning the passing away of a member of the royal family.

The Baju Melayu is commonly worn in Malaysia and Singapore by Malay men, although its use in Singapore is usually restricted to Fridays at mosques, and the Eid ul-Fitr (Hari Raya) holiday. Malaysian men usually wear the shirt for general religious occasions, such as visiting the mosque or for a religious gathering. Some companies allow their male workers to wear Baju Melayu on Fridays, whereas others have it as a policy. On the whole Singaporeans frequently refer to it as a Baju Kurung, although this term in Malaysia usually refers only to the corresponding outfit for women.

In Indonesia, both the Baju Melayu in both collar styles (and other Malay clothes such as Baju Kurung) is popular in provinces with large Malay populations such as Riau, the Riau Islands, West Kalimantan and a few other provinces. Recently, the Baju Melayu has become more popular and is not only worn at traditional events, but also in formal occasions. Government officers wear them proudly during official events (even national events). It is also worn as a uniform in Silat.
The female version of the baju melayu is called the baju kurung.

History of Levant

2009-04-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

The Stone age
The earliest known permanent settlements in the Levant were established by the hunters and gatherers of the Natufian culture. The following Neolithic period is divided into the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B and the pottery neolithic. Agriculture became the dominant life-style during the PPNB, but there are traces of nomadic hunters, especially in the Southern Levant and the Sinai.

The Bronze age
The first cities started developing in southern Mesopotamia during the 4th millennium BC. With these ties of religion began to replace ties of kinship as the basis for society. Each city had a patron god, worshipped in a massive central temple called a ziggurat, and was ruled by a priest-king (ishakku). Society became more segmented and specialized and capable of coordinated projects like irrigation and warfare.

Along with cities came a number of advances in technology. By around the 31st century BC, writing, the wheel, and other such innovations had been introduced. By now the Sumerian Peoples of south Mesopotamia were all organized into a variety of independent City-states, such as Ur and Uruk, which by around 26th century BC had begun to coalesce into larger political units. By accommodating the conquered people's gods, religion became more polytheistic and government became somewhat more secular; the title of lugal, big man, appears along side the earlier religious titles, although his primary duty is still the worship of the state gods.

This process came to its natural conclusion with the development of the first empires around the 24th century BC. A people called the Akkadians invaded the valley under Sargon I and established their supremacy over the Sumerians. They were followed by the empires of Ur during the 21st and 2nd centuries BC and the Old Kingdom of Babylonia during the 17th and 18th centuries BC.

Parallel developments were meanwhile occurring in Egypt, which by the 32nd century BC had been unified to form the Old Kingdom of Egypt, and amongst the peoples of the Indus Valley in north-western India. All of these civilizations lie in fertile river valleys where agriculture is relatively easy once dams and irrigation are constructed to control the flood waters.

This started to change around the end of the third millennium as cities started to spread to the nearby hilly country: among the Assyrians in north Mesopotamia, the Canaanites in Syria-Palestine, to the Minoans in Crete, and to the Hittites in eastern Anatolia. Around this same time various immigrants, such as the Hittites and Achaeans, started appearing around the peripheries of civilization.

These groups are associated with the appearance of the light two-wheeled war chariot and typically with Indo-European languages. Horses and chariots require a lot of time and upkeep, so their use was mainly confined to a small nobility. These are the "heroic" societies familiar to us from epics like the Iliad and the Ramayana.

Around the 17th and 16th centuries BC most of the older centres had been overrun. Babylonia was conquered by the Kassites, and the civilization of the Indus Valley was annihilated by the Indo-Aryans. Their kin, the Mitanni, subjugated Assyria and for a time menaced the Hittite kingdom, but were defeated by the two around the middle of the 14th. Various Achaean kingdoms developed in Greece, most notably that of Mycenae, and by the 15th century BC were dominant over the older Minoan cities. And the Semitic Hyksos used the new technologies to occupy Egypt, but were expelled, leaving the empire of the New Kingdom to develop in their wake.

In the 13th century BC all of these powers suddenly collapsed. Cities all around the eastern Mediterranean were sacked within a span of a few decades by assorted raiders. The Achaean kingdoms disappeared, and the Hittite empire was destroyed. Egypt repelled its attackers with only a major effort, and over the next century shrank to its territorial core, its central authority permanently weakened. Only Assyria escaped significant damage.

The Iron age
The destruction at the end of the bronze age left a number of tiny kingdoms and City-states behind. A few Hittite centres remained in northern Syria, along with some Canaanite (Phoenician) ports that escaped destruction and now developed into great commercial powers. Southern Palestine initially fell to the Philistines, but by the 11th century BC had been conquered by the Hebrews. And most of the interior, as well as Babylonia, was overrun by Arameans.

In this dark period a number of technological innovations spread, most notably iron working and the alphabet, developed by the Canaanites around the 16th century BC. Also around this time, the Hebrew religion developed into the first major Monotheism, Judaism, which is still practiced today.

During the 9th century BC the Assyrians began to reassert themselves against the incursions of the Aramaeans, and over the next few centuries developed into a powerful and well-organised empire. Their armies were among the first to employ cavalry, which took the place of chariots, and had a reputation for both prowess and brutality. At their height, the Assyrians dominated all of Syria-Palestine, Egypt, and Babylonia. However, the empire began to collapse toward the end of the 7th century BC, and was obliterated by an alliance between a resurgent New Kingdom of Babylonia and the Iranian Medes.

The subsequent balance of power was short-lived, though. In the 550s BC the Persians revolted against the Medes and gained control of their empire, and over the next few decades annexed to it the realms of Lydia in Anatolia, Babylonia, and Egypt, as well as consolidating their control over the Iranian plateau nearly as far as India. This vast kingdom was divided up into various satrapies and governed roughly according to the Assyrian model, but with a far lighter hand. Around this time Zoroastrianism became the predominant religion in Persia.

The Classical empires
From 492-449 BC the Persians made a series of unsuccessful attempts to conquer Greece. The civilisation that had developed there since the end of the bronze age was organised along entirely different lines than those of the Middle East, consisting of numerous small City-States fielding citizen militias. Nonetheless they banded together and proved quite capable of dealing with the massive armies of their foe.

By the fourth century BC Persia had fallen into decline. The campaigns of Xenophon illustrated how very vulnerable it had become to attack by an army organised along Greek lines, but the Greek city-states had weakened each other irreparably through in-fighting. However, in 338 BC the rising power of Macedonia overcame Greece, and under Alexander the Great turned its attention eastward. Alexander conquered Persia in little more than a decade.

Alexander did not live long enough to consolidate his realm, and in the half-century following his death (323 BC) it was carved up by his feuding generals. The Antigonids established themselves in Macedonia, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and various small principalities appeared in northern Anatolia. The greater share of the east went to the descendants of Seleucus I Nicator. This period saw great innovations in mathematics, science, architecture, and the like, and Greeks founded cities throughout the east, some of which grew to be the world's first major metropolises. Their culture did not, however, reach very far into the countryside.

The Seleucids adopted a pro-western stance that alienated both the powerful eastern satraps and the Greeks who had migrated to the east. During the 2nd century BC Greek culture lost ground there, and the empire began to break apart. The province of Bactria revolted, and Parthia was conquered by the semi-nomadic Parni. By 141 BC the Parthians had established themselves as an empire, after the Seleucid model, and had conquered all of Iran and Mesopotamia. The Seleucid kingdom continued to decline and its remaining provinces were annexed by the Roman Republic in 64 BC.

The Parthian nobility reacted against growing Roman influences around the turn of the millennium. Throughout the next century there was a strong expansion of national culture and a dissolution in central authority. In AD 114 Trajan temporarily occupied Mesopotamia, and with the end of Hadrian's 40-year peace the two powers were at almost constant hostilities. Mesopotamia was occupied again, but the Parthians recovered and pillaged the Roman provinces. Shortly thereafter, though, the province of Persia rose up in revolt, and defeated the last Parthian emperor in 224.

The new Persian dynasty, the Sassanids, restored central authority. In this period Zoroastrianism developed into an organised religion with close ties to the new state. Various sects of Christianity also spread throughout Iran, and Manichaeism developed from the two religions; these were initially tolerated but later persecuted as the Romans followed the opposite route. Conflicts with Rome, and later with the Byzantine Empire, continued intermittently.

The Byzantines reached their lowest point under Phocas, with the Sassanids occupying the whole of the eastern Mediterranean. In 610, though, Heraclius took the throne of Constantinople and began a successful counter-attack, expelling the Persians and invading Media and Assyria. Unable to stop his advance, Khosrau II of Persia was assassinated and the Sassanid empire fell into anarchy. Weakened by their quarrels, neither empire was prepared to deal with the onslaught of the Arabs, newly unified under the banners of Islam and anxious to expand their faith. By 650 Arab forces had conquered all of Persia, Syria, and Egypt.

For subsequent history see History of Islam.

History of Damascus

2009-03-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

This is about Damascus, the capital of Syria. There are also Damascus, Maryland, Damascus, Pennsylvania, and Damascus, Virginia.

Damascus (Arabic: دمشق Dimashq, Dimashq al-Sham, al-Sham; Tiberian Hebrew דמשק Damméśeq, Dammāśeq, Sephardi Hebrew Dammések, Damések, Dammǻsek, Damǻsek, Ashkenazi Hebrew Dammések, Damések, Dammósek, Damósek) is the capital of Syria. It is one of the world's oldest cities. According to the New Testament, St. Paul was on the road to Damascus when he received a vision, was struck blind and as a result converted to Christianity. The city is therefore a centre of both Christian and Muslim faith.

Damascus steel gained a legendary reputation among the Crusaders, and patterned steel is still "damascened". The patterned Byzantine and Chinese silks available through Damascus, one of the Western termini of the Silk Road, gave the English language damask.

Major sights of Damascus include:
• Tomb of Saladin
• House of Ananias - now a church
• Omayyad mosque
• Fountains

History
Damascus, settled about 2500 BC, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. It was the capital of a powerful Aramaic state in the 9th and 8th Centuries BC, before being captured and sacked by the Assyrians. At that point, it lost its independence for hundreds of years, falling under Neo-Babylonian, Persian, Seleucid, and Roman rule. During Roman times Damascus was considered such an important center of Greco-Roman culture that it was made an honorary member of the Decapolis league of cities. Damascus was conquered by the Caliph Omar in AD 636. Immediately thereafter, the city's power and prestige reached its peak when it became the capital of the Omayyad Empire, which extended from Spain to India from AD 661 to AD 750, when the Abbasid caliphate was established at Baghdad, Iraq. Damascus is the largest city of Syria, with a population (1995 estimate) of 1,751,000. Other major cities include Aleppo (1992 estimate, 1,745,000), Homs (518,000), Latakia (284,000), and Hama (254,000).

After this, Damascus was ruled from Baghdad, and then, for a time, by the Fatimid Caliphs in Cairo. With the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the late 11th Century, Damascus again became the capital of independent states. It was ruled by a Seljuk dynasty from 1079 to 1104, and then by another Turkish dynasty - the Burid Emirs, until 1154. In that year it was conquered by the famous Zengid Atabeg Nur ad-Din of Aleppo, the great foe of the Crusaders, who made it his capital. Following the death of Nur ed-Din, it was acquired by Saladin, the ruler of Egypt, who also made it his capital. In the years following Saladin's death, there were frequent conflicts between different Ayyubid sultans ruling in Damascus and Cairo.

Ayyubid rule (and independence) came to an end with the Mongol invasion of Syria in 1260, and Damascus became a provincial capital of the Mameluke Empire following the Mongol withdrawal. It was largely destroyed in 1400 by Tamerlane, the Mongol conqueror, who removed many of its craftsmen to Samarkand. Rebuilt, it continued to serve as a provincial capital until 1516. In 1517, it fell under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans remained for the next 400 years, except for a brief occupation by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt from 1832 to 1840.

In 1918, Damascus was captured by the British and their Arab allies at the end of the First World War. An attempt to create an Arab kingdom under the Emir Faisal was defeated by the French in 1920, who made Damascus the capital of their League of Nations Mandate of Syria. When Syria became independent in 1946, Damascus remained the capital.

Inhabitants of Damascus refer to their city as Sham.

History of Syria

2009-03-23T23:23:00.000-07:00

Archaeologists have demonstrated that Syria was the center of one of the most ancient civilizations on earth. Around the excavated city of Ebla in northern Syria, discovered in 1975, a great Semitic empire spread from the Red Sea north to Turkey and east to Mesopotamia from 2500 to 2400 B.C. The city of Ebla alone during that time had a population estimated at 260,000. Scholars believe the language of Ebla to be the oldest Semitic language.

Syria was occupied successively by Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Sumerians, Arameans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Nabataeans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, and Mongols, before finally coming under the control of the Ottoman Turks. Syria is significant in the history of Christianity; Paul was converted on the road to Damascus and established the first organized Christian Church at Antioch in ancient Syria, from which he left on many of his missionary journeys.

In the 7th century, Syria was conquered by the Arabs, and the present culture dates from that Moslem conquest. In the 13th century, the first Mongols arrived, destroying cities and irrigation works. By the end of the 15th century, the discovery of a sea route from Europe to the Far East ended the need for an overland trade route through Syria. Shattered by the Mongols, Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire from the 16th through 19th, and found itself largely apart from, and ignored by, world affairs.

After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was dissolved, and in 1922 the League of Nations split the dominion of the former Syria between two countries: the United Kingdom received Transjordan and Palestine, and France received what was to become modern-day Syria and Lebanon.

French Occupation
In 1920, an independent Arab Kingdom of Syria was established under King Faisal of the Hashemite family, who later became King of Iraq. However, his rule over Syria ended after only a few months, following the clash between his Syrian Arab forces and regular French forces at the Battle of Maysalun. French troops occupied Syria later that year after the League of Nations put Syria under French mandate. With the fall of France in 1940 during World War II, Syria came under the control of the Vichy Government until the British and Free French occupied the country in July 1941. Syria proclaimed its independence in 1941 but it wasn't until January 1, 1944 that it was recognised as an independent republic. Continuing pressure from Syrian nationalist groups forced the French to evacuate their troops in April 1946, leaving the country in the hands of a republican government that had been formed during the mandate.

Independence to 1970
Although rapid economic development followed the declaration of independence, Syrian politics from independence through the late 1960s was marked by upheaval. Between 1946 and 1956, Syria had 20 different cabinets and drafted four separate constitutions. In 1948, Syria was involved in the Arab-Israeli War. The Syrian army was pressed out of the Israel area, but fortified their strongholds on the Golan Heights and managed to keep their old borders. A series of military coups, begun in 1949, undermined civilian rule and led to army colonel Adib Shishakli's seizure of power in 1951. After the overthrow of President Shishakli in a 1954 coup, continued political maneuvering supported by competing factions in the military eventually brought Arab nationalist and socialist elements to power.

During the Suez Crisis of 1956, after the invasion of the Sinai Peninsula by Israeli troops, and the intervention of British and French troops, martial law was declared in Syria. Later Syrian and Iraqi troops were brought into Jordan to prevent a possible Israeli invasion. The November 1956 attacks on Iraqi pipelines were in retaliation for Iraq's acceptance into the Baghdad Pact. In early 1957 Iraq advised Egypt and Syria against a concievable takeover of Jordan.

In November 1956 Syria signed a pact with the Soviet Union, providing a foothold for Communist influence within the government in exchange for planes, tanks, and other military equipment being sent to Syria. With this increase in the strength of Syrian military technology worried Turkey, as it seemed feasible that Syria might attempt to retake Iskenderon, a formerly Syrian city now in Turkey. On the other hand, Syria and the U.S.S.R. accused Turkey of massing its troops at the Syrian border. During this standoff, Communists gained more control over the Syrian government and military. Only heated debates in the United Nations (of which Syria was an original member) lessened the threat of war.

Syria's political instability during the years after the 1954 coup, the parallelism of Syrian and Egyptian policies, and the appeal of Egyptian President Gamal Abdal Nasser's leadership in the wake of the Suez crisis created support in Syria for union with Egypt. On February 1, 1958, Syrian president Shukri el-Kuwatli and Nasser announced the merging of the two countries, creating the United Arab Republic, and all Syrian political parties, as well as the Communists therein, ceased overt activities.

The union was not a success, however. Following a military coup on September 28, 1961, Syria seceded, reestablishing itself as the Syrian Arab Republic. Instability characterised the next 18 months, with various coups culminating on March 8, 1963, in the installation by leftist Syrian Army officers of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC), a group of military and civilian officials who assumed control of all executive and legislative authority. The takeover was engineered by members of the Arab Socialist Resurrection Party (Ba'ath Party), which had been active in Syria and other Arab countries since the late 1940s. The new cabinet was dominated by Ba'ath members.

The Ba'ath takeover in Syria followed a Ba'ath coup in Iraq the previous month. The new Syrian Government explored the possibility of federation with Egypt and with Ba'ath-controlled Iraq. An agreement was concluded in Cairo on April 17, 1963, for a referendum on unity to be held in September 1963. However, serious disagreements among the parties soon developed, and the tripartite federation failed to materialize. Thereafter, the Ba'ath regimes in Syria and Iraq began to work for bilateral unity. These plans foundered in November 1963, when the Ba'ath regime in Iraq was overthrown. In May 1964, President Amin Hafiz of the NCRC promulgated a provisional constitution providing for a National Council of the Revolution (NCR), an appointed legislature composed of representatives of mass organisations—labour, peasant, and professional unions—a presidential council, in which executive power was vested, and a cabinet. On February 23, 1966, a group of army officers carried out a successful, intra-party coup, imprisoned President Hafiz, dissolved the cabinet and the NCR, abrogated the provisional constitution, and designated a regionalist, civilian Ba'ath government on March 1. The coup leaders described it as a "rectification" of Ba'ath Party principles. The defeat of the Syrians (with the loss of the Golan Heights) and Egyptians in the June 1967 war with Israel weakened the radical socialist regime established by the 1966 coup.

Conflict developed between a moderate military wing and a more extremist civilian wing of the Ba'ath Party. The 1970 retreat of Syrian forces sent to aid the PLO during the "Black September" hostilities with Jordan reflected this political disagreement within the ruling Ba'ath leadership. On November 13, 1970, Minister of Defense Hafiz al-Asad effected a bloodless military coup, ousting the civilian party leadership and assuming the role of prime minister.

1970 onwards
Upon assuming power, Hafiz al-Asad moved quickly to create an organizational infrastructure for his government and to consolidate control. The Provisional Regional Command of Asad's Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party nominated a 173-member legislature, the People's Council, in which the Ba'ath Party took 87 seats. The remaining seats were divided among "popular organizations" and other minor parties. In March 1971, the party held its regional congress and elected a new 21-member Regional Command headed by Asad. In the same month, a national referendum was held to confirm Asad as President for a 7-year term. In March 1972, to broaden the base of his government, Asad formed the National Progressive Front, a coalition of parties led by the Ba'ath Party, and elections were held to establish local councils in each of Syria's 14 governorates. In March 1973, a new Syrian constitution went into effect followed shortly thereafter by parliamentary elections for the People's Council, the first such elections since 1962.

On October 6 1973, Syria and Egypt staged a surprise attack against Israel in what Arabs call the Ramadan War. (Israelis call it the Yom Kippur War, since the war started on the Jewish Yom Kippur day.) But despite the element of surprise, Egypt and Syria lost the war, and Israel continued to hold the Golan Heights.

The authoritarian regime was not without its critics, though most were quickly murdered. A serious challenge arose in the late 1970s, however, from fundamentalist Sunni Muslims, who reject the basic values of the secular Ba'ath program and object to rule by the Alawis, whom they consider heretical. From 1976 until its suppression in 1982, the arch-conservative Muslim Brotherhood led an armed insurgency against the regime. In response to an attempted uprising by the brotherhood in February 1982, the government crushed the fundamentalist opposition centered in the city of Hama, leveling parts of the city with artillery fire and causing many thousands of dead and wounded. Since then, public manifestations of anti-regime activity have been very limited.

Syria's 1990 participation in the U.S.-led multinational coalition aligned against Saddam Hussein marked a dramatic watershed in Syria's relations both with other Arab states and with the West. Syria participated in the multilateral Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid in October 1991, and during the 1990s engaged in direct, face-to-face negotiations with Israel. These negotiations failed, and there have been no further Syrian-Israeli talks since President Hafiz Al-Asad's meeting with then President Bill Clinton in Geneva in March 2000.

21st century
Hafiz Al-Asad died on June 10, 2000, after 30 years in power. Immediately following Al-Asad's death, the Parliament amended the constitution, reducing the mandatory minimum age of the President from 40 to 34 years old, which allowed his son, Bashar Al-Asad legally to be eligible for nomination by the ruling Ba'ath party. On July 10, 2000, Bashar Al-Asad was elected President by referendum in which he ran unopposed, garnering 97.29% of the vote, according to Syrian government statistics.

On October 5, 2003, Israel bombed a site near Damascus, claiming it was a terrorist training facility for members of Islamic Jihad. The raid was in retaliation for the bombing of a restaurant in the Israeli town of Haifa that killed 19. Islamic Jihad said the camp was not in use; Syria said the attack was on a civilian area.

The Israeli action was widely condemned. The German Chancellor said it "cannot be accepted" and the French Foreign Ministry said "The Israeli operation... constituted an unacceptable violation of international law and sovereignty rules." The Spanish UN Ambassador Inocencio Arias called it an attack of "extreme gravity" and "a clear violation of international law." However, the United States moved closer to slapping sanctions on Syria, following the adoption of the Syria Accountability Act by the House of Representatives International Relations committee.

Syrian Kurds protest in Brussels, Geneva, in Germany at the US and UK embassies and in Turkey, against violence in north-east Syria starting Friday, March 12, and reportedly extending over the weekend resulting in several deaths, according to reports. The Kurds allege the Syrian government encouraged and armed the attackers. Signs of rioting was seen in the towns of Qameshli and Hassakeh. According to the BBC Kurds in Syria have no say in politics and no rights in social and cultural affairs.

Mongols

2009-03-23T23:05:00.000-07:00

Mongols
Mongolia, Russia, and China, particularly Inner Mongolia. They currently number about 8.5 million and speak the Mongol language. They form one of the 56 nationalities officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. There are approximately 2.3 million Mongols in Mongolia, 4 million Mongols living in Inner Mongolia, and 2 million Mongols living in neigboring provinces. In addition, there are a number of ethnic groups in North China related to the Mongols: the Daur, Buryat, Evenk, Dorbod, and Tuvin.

History
Though few in number (approximately 200,000 people at the height of their empire), Mongols were important in world history. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan, the Mongols created the largest land empire in world history, ruling 13.8 million mile² (36 million km²) and more than 100 million people. At their height, their empire spanned from Korea to Hungary, and included most of the lands in between, such as Afghanistan, Georgia, Armenia, Russia, Persia, and much of the Middle East.

The Mongols were a nomadic people who in the 13th century found themselves encompassed by large, city-dwelling agrarian civilizations. However, none of these civilizations were part of a strong central state. Asia, Russia, and the Middle East were either declining kingdoms, or divided city states. Taking the strategic initiative, the Mongols exploited this power vacuum and linked all of these areas into a mutually supporting trade network.

The Mongols were largely dependent on trade with the city-dwelling peoples, and raiding these villages when times were particularly hard. As nomads, they could not accumulate a surplus against bad times, or support artisans. When trade was reduced by the northern Chinese kingdoms in the 1200's, shortly after Genghis Khan rose to supremacy over the Mongol tribes, the Mongols repeated their tradition of getting their goods by looting Northern China.

Conquest, in the Khan's initial viewpoint, did not consist of subordination of competing cultures to the nomadic way of life, but rather in their looting and destruction. As a nomad, Genghis Khan is supposed to not have understood (or cared) of the supposed benefits in the city dwellers' way of life. This contrasts with their dependence on trade with the cities. However, the economic theories of these relationships still lay seven centuries in the future.

The Khan's initial plan of conquest was sacking all that was valuable, and then razing the city and killing the entire population, leaving only artists and human shields (for future campaigns) to survive. Different theories exist for why the Mongols were initially so extreme. Militarily, the Mongols were often far from home territory and greatly out-numbered, and wouldn't want to leave enemies in their rear. Psychologically, the Mongols were a nomadic people, and saw no use for a civilian population. Economically, destroying population centers gave the Mongols more room to graze their herds.

One such example is the capture of Beijing in 1215. Rather than adding the city to the Mongol Kingdom, he instead thorougly sacked the city for silk and other valuables.

As the Mongols grew more powerful, advisers convinced Genghis Khan to start building a vassal empire. If the city-dwelling peoples were allowed to continue their way of life, they could produce a surplus of food and goods, a portion of which could be paid to the Khan as taxes. Given the Khan's extraordinary success in his aggressive foreign policy, this wealth could be equally extraordinary. The Khan agreed, taking his tribute in tax, and saving countless lives and cultures in the process. Until 1225 they continued these invasions through Western Asia, into Persia and Russia.

In 1227, Genghis Khan died, leaving the Empire to his son Ogedei Khan. Ogedei Khan continued the expansion into Western Asia, also conquering Korea and Northern China. The armies of the Mongols had reached Poland and Egypt by 1241, and looked poised to continue, when Ogedei Khan died, leaving no clear successor. Mongol military leaders (who as descendants of Genghis Khan were possible heirs to the throne) rushed back to claim the throne. Nearly a decade later, Mongka Khan, grandson of Genghis and nephew of Ogodai, took the throne, through the assistance of his mother Sorghaghtani Beki. By this time, the Western expansion had lost its momentum.

Various members of the Mongol Court, including Sorghaghtani Beki, were Nestorian Christians. While the court was nominally Buddhist and maintained a policy of being open to all religions, it was known as particularly sympathetic to Christians (which may have helped contribute to the legend of Prester John). In 1253 the court followed the suggestion from Crusader Kingdoms in Syria to attack the Muslim capitols of Baghdad and Cairo. Baghdad was conquered and sacked in 1258, with the city's Christians spared, and the Abbasid caliph killed. However, with the troops on the road to Cairo, Mongka Khan died in 1259. Much of the force returned home for the selection of the new leader, and Egyptian troops repelled the attack in 1260. This marked the farthest West the Mongol Empire would progress.
Kublai Khan quickly succeeded Mongka Khan, moved the court to Beijing, formed the Yuan dynasty, and re-started the invasion of China, in the first war with guns on both sides. After 18 years, Kublai Khan conquered both Northern and Southern China, forming the largest empire in history (as famously described by Marco Polo).

However, by the early 14th century, the prominence of trade, and a possible cooling of the world's climates, led to worldwide outbreaks of plague, which encouraged revolt and invasion. Mongols quit China around 1360, and the Turks (among others) carved out their gains throughout the 14th century. The Chinese invaded Mongolia, and by the 17th century, the Qing dynasty fully incorporated Mongolia into its empire, forming the states of Outer Mongolia and a more Sinocized Inner Mongolia.

Military Innovation
The western expansion was a success for the empire until 1241 (see Wahlstatt). As they encountered the peoples of Europe, the Mongols with their advanced way of warfare were unstoppable. The Mongols used, and introduced, several revolutionary military ideas to European combatants.

•Use of articulation. Mongols used a system of horns and flags, blown or raised-and-lowered by the field commander. This allowed them to move their troops to preplanned positions on the field of battle, or modes of attack or retreat (such as charge, withdraw, or flank). In addition, they utilized subcommanders that were empowered to make decisions on the spot.

•Mongols based their forces almost entirely on light cavalry. Light cavalry consisted primarily of archers and light swordsman mounted on horseback. Mobile and numerous, light cavalry could choose its battles and retreat from forces it could not handle, such as heavy cavalry. Heavy cavalry lacked archers (who could kill at range) and was designed mainly to provide shock -- using weight, speed, and fear of their massed movement to break enemy heavy infantry lines.
Thus, when light cavalry met heavy cavalry, the lighter, more numerous, faster moving, bow using, well-articulated light cavalry usually defeated mounted knights -- the cream of European military power.

•Their conception of armor was markedly different. European knights used heavy plate armour (sheets of loops of chain and pieces of metal plate to protect the wearer, restricting vision and movement). Mongols used silk clothes. The cloth allowed Mongol warriors greater range of movement, better vision and endurance but still provided resistance to projectile weapons. It thus gave them a qualitative advantage over their opponents.

If a Mongol soldier was struck with an arrow, it penetrated the skin and sank into the flesh. However, the silk was not cut but pushed into the wound. Mongol doctors could easily pull an arrow from the wound, because it was wrapped in silk cloth. This reduced the chance of infection and made cleaning and dressing the wound easier, returning the skilled warrior to combat more quickly.

This simple procedure saved many lives. In a prolonged conflict, the Mongols retained more battlefield veterans than their opponents. This usually resulted in a situation where an army of veteran Mongols faced a conscript peasant army, with disastrous results for the Mongols' opponents.

•Mongols utilized doctrines never before seen. As nomads, Mongols carried all of their wealth and provisions with them on horseback. It was equivalent to placing an entire city on horseback. It was more mobile than many of their opponents' armed forces, who were tied to the towns for supplies.

Since their way of warfare was superior (articulated veteran light cavalry) they could not be bested in combat. The traditional solution to this problem is to attack the opponents' supply tail (food, fields, water, etc.). However, their city-dwelling opponents were tied to a supply tail, not the Mongols.

These strategies and tactics assured them victory against foes throughout their history. The closest modern analogue is the modern aircraft carrier, with its ability to bring an entire city of warriors next door to an opponent on short notice, strike, and retreat, without pursuit.
•Mongols' effective use of terror is often credited for the unprecedented speed with which Mongol armies spread across western Asia and eastern Europe.

First, the Mongols would provide an opportunity to surrender, usually on terms favourable to the Mongols. These offers were typically dictated to the first major population center in a new territory.

If the offer was refused, the Mongols would sack the city, execute the entire population (save a handful of skilled workers), and burn the city and the surrounding fields to the ground. They would often construct an edifice of cleaned skulls outside the walls of the destroyed city to serve as a reminder of their passage.

Finally, they would allow a few survivors to flee, to spread terror throughout the countryside. By first offering favourable (or at least acceptable) terms for surrender, and then invariably completely destroying any resistance, it is argued that Mongols forestalled most combat with invaded peoples. The Mongols quickly developed a reputation of being unstoppable, genocidal opponents. After the initial victories, and proof of the Mongols good intentions, it became more difficult for rulers to convince their people to resist an invasion.

Timeline of Conquest
The Mongols attempted two unsuccessful invasions of Japan. The first invasion fleet was utterly destroyed by a typhoon (kamikaze) in 1281. The Mongolian fleets survived the typhoon the second time but the landed troops, who starved because their provisions had been lost in the typhoon, were annihilated by Japanese infantry and samurai.

Other Mongol defeats include their invasion of Java, and south East Asia (Modern day Vietnam). The tropical climate proved unsuitable to cavalry, and while Vietnam was made a vassal state, Java remained autonomous much to the fury of Kublai.

•1200, Northern China - Unknown number killed
•1215, Yanjing China (today Beijing) - Unknown number killed
•1221, Nishapur, Persia - ~1.7 million killed in assault
•1221, Merv, Persia - ~1.3 million killed in assault
•1221, Meru Chahjan, Persia - ~1.3 million killed in assault
•1221, Rayy, Persia - ~1.6 million killed in assault
•1226, Tangut Campaign - Gengis Khan launches war against the northern China people of Tangut.
•1236, Bilär,Bulgar cities, Volga Bulgaria - 150,000 or more and more (nearly half of population)
•1237-1240, Kievan Rus' - half of population
•1241, Wahlstatt -- defeat of a combined Polish-German force in lower Silesia (Poland); the Mongols turn back to attend to the election of a new Grand Khan.
•1258, Baghdad - ~800,000 people. Results in destruction of Abbasid dynasty
•1226-1266, ~18 million reported killed in conquest of northern Chinese territory. This number estimated by Kublai Khan himself.

Modern History
In 1921, Outer Mongolia revolted with Russian support, forming modern Mongolia. A Communist government was formed in 1924. The USSR defended Mongolia from Japanese invasion. However, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, for reasons both practical and philosophical, enacted an often brutal if not entirely effective sweeping of Mongolian tradition, working against the Buddhist religions, clan-ism, and script, and for collectivism (as opposed to the traditional nomadic lifestyle). Mongolia aligned itself with Russia after the Sino-Soviet split of 1958. In 1990 the Communist government was overthrown, and by 1992 Mongolia established a parliamentary government.

Inner Mongolia forms an autonomous state within China. Han Chinese have been massively re-settled there, and are the dominant ethnic group, and China places many of the same cultural restrictions on Mongols as did Soviet Mongolia. However, Mongols are exempt from the government's one-child policy, and the PRC officially promotes the Mongol language.

History of Israel

2009-03-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 was preceded by more than 50 years of efforts to establish a sovereign nation as a homeland for Jews. These efforts were initiated by Theodore Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, and were given added impetus by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which asserted the British Government's support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

In the years following World War I, Palestine became a British Mandate and Jewish immigration steadily increased, as did violence between Palestine's Jewish and Arab communities. Mounting British efforts to restrict this immigration were countered by international support for Jewish national aspirations following the near-extermination of European Jewry by the Nazis during World War II. This support led to the 1947 UN partition plan, which would have divided Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem under UN administration.

On May 14, 1948, soon after the British quit Palestine, the State of Israel was proclaimed and was immediately invaded by armies from neighboring Arab states, which rejected the UN partition plan. This conflict, Israel's War of Independence, was concluded by armistice agreements between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria in 1949 and resulted in a 50% increase in Israeli territory.

In 1956, French, British, and Israeli forces engaged Egypt in response to its nationalization of the Suez Canal and blockade of the Straits of Tiran. Israeli forces withdrew in March 1957, after the United Nations established the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) in the Gaza Strip and Sinai. This war resulted in no territorial shifts and was followed by several years of terrorist incidents and retaliatory acts across Israel's borders.

In June 1967, Israeli forces struck targets in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in response to Egyptian President Nasser's ordered withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the Sinai Peninsula and the buildup of Arab armies along Israel's borders. After 6 days, all parties agreed to a cease-fire, under which Israel retained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the formerly Jordanian-controlled West Bank of the Jordan River, and East Jerusalem. On November 22, 1967, the Security Council adopted Resolution 242, the "land for peace" formula, which called for the establishment of a just and lasting peace based on Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967 in return for the end of all states of belligerency, respect for the sovereignty of all states in the area, and the right to live in peace within secure, recognized boundaries.

The following years were marked by continuing violence across the Suez Canal, punctuated by the 1969-70 war of attrition. On October 6, 1973--Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement), the armies of Syria and Egypt launched an attack against Israel. Although the Egyptians and Syrians initially made significant advances, Israel was able to push the invading armies back beyond the 1967 cease-fire lines by the time the United States and the Soviet Union helped bring an end to the fighting. In the UN Security Council, the United States supported Resolution 338, which reaffirmed Resolution 242 as the framework for peace and called for peace negotiations between the parties.

In the years that followed, sporadic clashes continued along the cease-fire lines but guided by the U.S., Egypt, and Israel continued negotiations. In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made a historic visit to Jerusalem, which opened the door for the 1978 Israeli-Egyptian peace summit convened at Camp David by President Carter. These negotiations led to a 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, pursuant to which Israel withdrew from the Sinai in 1982, signed by President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menahem Begin of Israel.

In the years following the 1948 war, Israel's border with Lebanon was quiet relative to its borders with other neighbors. After the expulsion of Palestinian fighters from Jordan in 1970 and their influx into southern Lebanon, however, hostilities along Israel's northern border increased and Israeli forces crossed into Lebanon. After passage of Security Council Resolution 425, calling for Israeli withdrawal and the creation of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon peacekeeping force (UNIFIL), Israel withdrew its troops.

In June 1982, following a series of cross-border terrorist attacks and the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador to the U.K., Israel invaded Lebanon to fight the forces of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO withdrew its forces from Lebanon in August 1982. Israel, having failed to finalize an agreement with Lebanon, withdrew most of its troops in June 1985 save for a residual force which remained in southern Lebanon to act as a buffer against attacks on northern Israel. These remaining forces were completely withdrawn in May 2000 behind a UN-brokered delineation of the Israel-Lebanon border (the Blue Line). Hizballah forces in Southern Lebanon continued to attack Israeli positions south of the Blue Line in the Sheba Farms/Har Dov area of the Golan Heights.

The victory of the U.S.-led coalition in the Persian Gulf War of 1991 opened new possibilities for regional peace. In October 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union convened the Madrid Conference, in which Israeli, Lebanese, Jordanian, Syrian, and Palestinian leaders laid the foundations for ongoing negotiations designed to bring peace and economic development to the region. Within this framework, Israel and the PLO signed a Declaration of Principles on September 13, 1993, which established an ambitious set of objectives relating to a transfer of authority from Israel to an interim Palestinian authority. Israel and the PLO subsequently signed the Gaza-Jericho Agreement on May 4, 1994, and the Agreement on Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities on August 29, 1994, which began the process of transferring authority from Israel to the Palestinians.

On October 26, 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a historic peace treaty, witnessed by President Clinton. This was followed by Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and PLO Chairman Arafat's signing of the historic Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on September 28, 1995. This accord, which incorporated and superseded previous agreements, broadened Palestinian self-government and provided for cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians in several areas.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, by a right-wing Jewish radical, bringing the increasingly bitter national debate over the peace process to a climax. Subsequent Israeli governments continued to negotiate with the PLO resulting in additional agreements, including the Wye River and the Sharm el-Sheikh memoranda.

A summit hosted by President Clinton at Camp David in July 2000 to address permanent status issues--including the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, final security arrangements, borders, and relations and cooperation with neighboring states--failed to produce an agreement.

Following the failed talks, widespread violence broke out in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza in September 2000. In April 2001 the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact Finding Committee, commissioned by the October 2000 Middle East Peace Summit and chaired by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, submitted its report, which recommended an immediate end to the violence followed by confidence-building measures and a resumption of security cooperation and peace negotiations. The United States has worked intensively to help bring an end to the violence between Israelis and Palestinians and bring about the implementation of the recommendations of the Mitchell Committee as a bridge back to political negotiations. In April 2003, the Quartet (the U.S., U.N., E.U., and the Russian Federation) announced the “roadmap,” a performance-based plan to bring about two states, Israel and a democratic, viable Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. Both the Israelis and Palestinians have affirmed their commitment to the roadmap, but continuing Israeli-Palestinian violence has led to a continuing crisis of confidence between the two sides.

Israel has endured constant hostility from Arab neighbors who hate Jews. It is probable that peace will not come to the Middle East until Arab states cease their anti-Semitism, demand Palestinian's to end their terrorist acts, and accept Israel as a sovereign nation with the right to exist peacefully.

The King of Saladin

2009-03-23T22:15:00.000-07:00

Saladin (1137 -1193) ('Salah al Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub) founded the ethnically Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt and Syria. He was also renowned in both the Christian and Muslim worlds for his leadership and military prowess tempered by his chivalry and merciful nature during the Crusades.

Rise to power
Salah al Din was born into a Kurdish family at Tikrit on the river Tigris and was sent to Damascus to finish his education. There he lived for ten years at the court of Nur ad-Din, and distinguished himself by his interest in Sunni hadith. After an initial military education under the command of his uncle, the Seljuk statesman and soldier Shirkuh, who was representing Nur ad-Din on campaigns against a faction of the Fatimid caliphate of Egypt in the 1160s, Saladin eventually succeeded the defeated faction and his uncle as vizier in 1169, and inherited a difficult role defending Egypt against the incursions of the Latin Kings of Jerusalem, especially Amalric I. His position was tenuous at first, as no one expected him to last long in Egypt, where there had been many changes of government in previous years, due to a long line of child caliphs fought over by competing viziers. As the leader of a foreign army from Syria, he also had no control over the Shi'ite Egyptian army, which was led in the name of the now otherwise powerless caliph. When he died, in September 1171, Saladim had the imams pronounce the name of the Abassid caliph in Baghdad at Friday prayers, and the weight of authority simply deposed the old line. Now Saladin ruled Egypt, but officially as the representative of Nur ad-Din, who himself conventionally recognized the Abassid caliph.

Thus ran the fictions of power. In reality, with the aid of his brothers who were given control of large estates in Lower Egypt, land-holdings whose pattern had survived largely unchanged since late Antiquity, Saladin turned Egypt into a fiefdom of his own family, against the wishes of Nur ad-Din, who had sent Shirkuh and Saladin to Egypt in the first place. With Nur ad-Din's death (1174), he assumed the title of sultan in Egypt, where he was treated as a usurper by many Seljuks, who refused to serve under a Kurdish "sultan." Nevertheless, Saladin proved to be the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and restored Sunnism in Egypt. He extended his territory westwards in the maghreb, and when his uncle, sent up the Nile to pacify some resistance of the former Fatimid supporters, continued on down the Red Sea to conquer Yemen, Nur Ad-Din in Damascus was beginning to sense that he had unwillingly unleashed a dangerous new power, when he died in 1174.

Fighting the Crusaders
On two occasions, in 1171 and 1173, Saladin retreated from an invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. These had been launched by Nur ad-Din, and Saladin hoped that the Crusader kingdom would remain intact, as a buffer state between Egypt and Syria, until Saladin could gain control of Syria as well. Nur ad-Din and Saladin were headed towards open war on these counts, when Nur ad-Din died in 1174. His heir was a mere boy, in the hands of court eunuchs. (He died in 1181.) Saladin marched on Damascus, and was welcomed into the city. He reinforced his legitimacy there in the time-honored way, by marrying Nur ad-Din's widow. Aleppo and Mosul, on the other hand, the two other largest cities that Nur ad-Din had ruled, were never taken, but Saladin managed to impose his influence and authority on them in 1176 and 1186 respectively. While he was occupied in besieging Aleppo, on May 22, 1176 the "Assassins" attempted to murder him.

While Saladin was consolidating his power in Syria, he generally left the Crusader kingdom, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem alone, although he was usually victorious whenever he did meet the Crusaders in battle. One exception was the Battle of Montgisard in 1177, although he soon recovered and defeated the Crusaders at the Ford of Jacob's Daughters in 1179. However, the Crusaders repeatedly provoked him. Raynald of Chatillon, in particular, harassed Muslim trading and pilgrimage routes with a fleet on the Red Sea, a water route that it was essential for Saladin to keep open. Worse, and what made him a legendary monster in the Muslim world, Raynald threatened to attack the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Then Raynald looted a caravan of pilgrims on hajj in 1185. In July of 1187, Saladin invaded the Kingdom of Jerusalem and annihilated the Crusader army at the Battle of Hattin, a major disaster for the Crusaders and a turning point in the history of the Crusades. Saladin captured and executed Raynald; he also captured the King, Guy of Lusignan. He then recaptured Jerusalem on October 2, 1187, after 88 years of Crusader rule. Soon he had taken back every Crusader city except Tyre.

Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem prompted the Third Crusade. This Crusade took back Acre, and Saladin was defeated by King Richard I of England at the Battle of Arsuf in 1191. Saladin's relationship with Richard was one of chivalrous mutual respect as well as military rivalry; both were celebrated in the courtly romances that developed in northern Europe. When Richard was wounded, Saladin even offered the services of his personal physician, a signal favor for Muslim medical practice was the best in the Western world. At Arsuf, when Richard lost his horse, Saladin sent him two replacements. There were even plans to marry Richard's sister to Saladin's brother. The two came to an agreement over Jerusalem in the treaty of Ramla 1192, whereby it would remain in Muslim hands but would be open to Christian pilgrimages; the treaty reduced the Latin Kingdom to a strip along the coast from Tyre to Joffa.
Not long after Richard's departure, Saladin died in 1193 at Damascus. When they opened Saladin's treasury they found there was not enough money to pay for his funeral; he had given his money away to those in need. His tomb is now a major tourist attraction.

Few structures associated with Saladin survive within modern cities. Saladin first fortified the Citadel of Cairo (1176 - 1183), which had been a domed pleasure pavilion with a fine view in more peaceful times. In Syria even the smallest cities centered on a defensible citadel, and Saladin introduced this essential feature to Egypt. The largely Ottoman Citadel as it exists has been largely rebuilt since, but a fortified caravanerai, Qalaat al-Gindi, that he rebuilt survives in the central Sinai desert, thanks largely to its utter isolation. It was rediscovered in 1909 by French archaeological team under Jules Barthoux. Saladin reinforced this meeting place of three caravan routes that linked Egypt, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean; within its walls and many vaulted rooms were hewn out of rock. A Fatimid style mihrab dominates the fortress, which is rarely found by tourists.

Recognition
Despite his fierce opposition to the Christian powers, Saladin achieved a great reputation in Europe as a chivalrous knight, so much so that there existed by the 14th century an epic poem about his exploits, and Dante included him among the virtuous pagan souls in Limbo.

The name Salah ad Din means "Righteousness of the Faith", and through the ages Saladin has been an inspiration for Muslims in many respects. A province centered around Tikrit in modern Iraq, Salah ad Din, is named after Saladin.

Kurd

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The Kurds are an ethnic group of Medes origin, comprised of (according to some sources) about 25 million people, primarily in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. There are also Kurdish communities in Armenia, Georgia. Traditionally the Kurds were nomadic herdsmen, but are now seminomadic or sedentary. The majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims. The ancient Kurdish community near Kabul, Afghanistan left the country during the Afghan Civil War in the late 1970s. For over a century, many Kurds have been campaigning for the right to their own state, which they would call Kurdistan -- by some accounts the Kurds are the world's largest ethnic group without their own state. However, despite promises of the creation of such a state made in the early 20th century, all the region's governments are opposed to it.
The Kurds constitute the only sizable minority in Turkey. The exact number of Kurdish people living in Southwest Asia is unknown due to both absence of a recent study on this issue and the fact that some of Kurdish people have mixed with other local ethnic groups. The estimated numbers for the percentage of Kurdish people living in Turkey vary from 3% (Encyclopedia Americana ) to 20% (CIA Factbook ). They are concentrated in the east and southeast regions of Turkey. There are also Kurdish enclaves in central Turkey. Millions of Kurds have moved to the large cities of Western and Southern Turkey in recent decades - notably Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, Adana and Mersin. Many Kurds have also emigrated to Western European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium and the United Kingdom.
Kurdish guerillas launched attacks on Turkish targets in 1984, and since then they have fought against the Turkish government for independence and the right to be educated in Kurdish schools, with little success. In 1999, the Turkish government had a major victory when it abducted Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), one of the groups fighting for Kurdish rights and independence. Turkey then placed him on trial for treason and sentenced him to life imprisonment. After that the Kurdish rebel movement in Turkey declared that it would end its military attacks to create a Kurdish homeland but continue its activities on political platform.
The Kurdish guerillas have been and continue to be persecuted by both Iraq and Turkey. In Turkey, publication (both printed and audio-visual media) and teaching (although very restricted) in Kurdish language is allowed, and recent reforms promised limited broadcasting in Kurdish language. However, it refuses to recognize them as an ethnic group but Kurds may take their place in any part of Turkish life including the National Assembly as long as they pretend to be 'mountain turks' a term which is very offensive to Kurds.
The status of Kurds is now surrounded in mystery. Under the former Iraqi Ba'athist regime, which ruled Iraq from 1968 until 2003, they were initially granted limited autonomy and given some high-level political representation in Baghdad. However, for various reasons including the siding of some Kurds with Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the regime became opposed to the Kurds and an effective civil war broke out. Iraq was widely condemned, but not seriously punished, by the international community for using chemical weapons against the Kurds. Kurdish regions during the 1990s had de-facto independence, with fully functioning civil administrations, and were protected by the US-enforced Iraqi no-fly zone which stopped Iraqi air attacks. During the period of self-governance there were armed clashes between the two main political groups in the area, each claiming the title of Kurdistan's government, which undermined the effectiveness of the Kurds in their fighting with the Iraqis. Following the unseating of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003, little is known as to how 'Kurdistan' will be dealt with in the future. The American-sponsored idea of a Federal Republic, with a relatively high level of autonomy for the Kurds, currently appears to be the most popular.
Some improvements in Kurdish rights in Turkey have however been made under pressure from the European Union. The European Union has made membership for Turkey conditional on, among other things, better treatment of its Kurdish minority. In August 2002, Turkey accepted the EU's conditions, and amended certain of its restrictions on the Kurds.

See also : History of the Kurds and Timeline of the Kurds

Kurdish organisations
•Ansar al-Islam
•Demokrasi ve Barış Partisi (DBP, Democracy and Peace Party)
•Hak ve Özgürlükler Partisi (HAK-PAR, Rights and Freedoms Party)
•Halkin Demokrasi Partisi (HADEP, Peoples' Democracy Party)
•Kurdistan Democratic Party (runs an elected government in Northern Iraq)
•Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (runs an elected government in Northern Iraq)
•Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK, dissolved)
•Congress for Freedom and Democracy Kurdistan (KADEK, dissolved)
•People's Congress of Kurdistan (Kongra-Gel)

History of the Kurds

2009-03-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

With regard to the origin of the Kurds, it was formerly considered sufficient to describe them as the descendants of the Carduchi, who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the mountains in the 4th century BCE. But modern research traces them far beyond the period of the Greeks. In their own histories, they are proud to mention the Hurrian period in the mid third millennium BC as the earliest documented period. This was the time of Kurti, Gutis, Khadi, Hatti, Mards, Mushku, Manna, Mittanni, Urartu, and the Kassites. It should be mentioned that the Kurds are an Indo-European people, while none of the above were. However Kurds consider themselves as much Indo-European as they do any of these.
At the dawn of history the mountains overhanging Assyria were held by a people named Gutii, a title which signified "a warrior", and which was rendered in Assyrian by the synonym of Gardu or Kardu, the precise term quoted by Strabo to explain the name of the Cardaces. These Gutu were a tribe of such power as to be placed in the early Cuneiform records on an equality with the other nations of western Asia, that is, with the Syrians and Hittites, the Susians, Elamites, and Akkadians of Babylonia; and during the whole period of the Assyrian Empire they seem to have preserved a more-or-less independent political position.
After the fall of Nineveh the Gutu coalesced with the Medes, and, in common with all the nations inhabiting the high plateaus of Asia Minor, Armenia and Persia, became gradually Aryanised, owing to the immigration at this period of history of tribes in overwhelming numbers which, from whatever quarter they may have sprung, belonged certainly to the Aryan family.
The Gutii or Kurdu were reduced to subjection by Cyrus before he descended upon Babylon, and furnished a contingent of fighting men to his successors, being thus mentioned under the names of "Saspirians" and "Alarodians" in the muster roll of the army of Xerxes which Herodotus has preserved.
In later times they passed successively under the sway of the Macedonians, the Parthians, and Sassanians, being especially befriended, if we may judge from tradition as well as from the remains still existing in the country, by the Arsacian monarchs, who were probably of a cognate race. Gotarzes indeed, whose name may perhaps be translated "chief of the Gutii", was traditionally believed to be the founder of the Gurans, the principal tribe of southern Kurdistan, and his name and titles are still preserved in a Greek inscription at Behistun near the Kurdish capital of Kermanshah.
Under the caliphs of Baghdad the Kurds were always giving trouble in one quarter or another. In AD 838, and again in 905, formidable insurrections occurred in northern Kurdistan; the amir, Aqpd-addaula, was obliged to lead tne forces of the caliphate against the southern Kurds, capturing the famous fortress of Sermaj, of which the ruins are to be seen at the present day near Behistun, and reducing the province of Shahrizor with its capital city now marked by the great mound of Yassin Teppeh.
The most flourishing period of Kurdish power was probably during the 12th century, when the great Saladin, who belonged to the Rawendi branch of the Hadabani tribe, founded the Ayyubite dynasty of Syria, and Kurdish chieftainhips were established, not only to the east and west of the Kurdistan mountains, but as far as Khorasan upon one side and Egypt and Yemen on the other.
During the Mongol and Tatar domination of western Asia the Kurds in the mountains remained for the most part passive, yielding a reluctant obedience to the provincial governors of the plains. When Sultan Selim I, after defeating Shah Ismail I in 1514, annexed Armenia and Kurdistan, he entrusted the organisation of the conquered territories to Idris, the historian, who was a Kurd of Bitlis. Idris found Kurdistan bristling with castles, held by hereditary tribal chiefs of Kurd, Arab, and Armenian descent, who were practically independent, and passed their time in tribal warfare or in raiding the agricultural population. He divided the territory into sanjaks or districts, and, making no attempt to interfere with the principle of heredity, installed the local chiefs as governors. He also resettled the rich pastoral country between Erzerum and Erivan, which had lain waste since the passage of Timur, with Kurds from the Hakkiari and Bohtan districts.
The system of administration introduced by Idris remained unchanged until the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29. But the Kurds, owing to the remoteness of their country from the capital and the decline of Turkey, had greatly increased in influence and power, and had spread westwards over the country as far as Angora.
After the war the Kurds attempted to free themselves from Turkish control, and in 1834 it became necessary to reduce them to subjection. This was done by Reshid Pasha. The principal towns were strongly garrisoned, and many of the Kurd beys were replaced by Turkish governors. A rising under Bedr Khan Bey in 1843 was firmly repressed, and after the Crimean War the Turks strengthened their hold on the country. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 was followed by the attempt of Sheikh Obaidullah in 1880 - 1881 to found an independent Kurd principality under the protection of Turkey. The attempt, at first encouraged by the Porte, as a reply to the projected creation of an Armenian state under the suzerainty of Russia, collapsed after Obaidullah's raid into Persia, when various circumstances led the central government to reassert its supreme authority. Until the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29 there had been little hostile feeling between the Kurds and the Armenians, and as late as 1877 - 1878 the mountaineers of both races had co-existed fairly well together. Both suffered from Turkey, both dreaded Russia. But the national movement amongst the Armenians, and its encouragement by Russia after the latest war, gradually aroused race hatred and fanaticism.
In 1891 the activity of the Armenian Committees induced the Porte to strengthen the position of the Kurds by raising a body of Kurdish irregular cavalry, which was well-armed and called Hamidieh after the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II. The opportunities thus offered for plunder and the gratification of race hatred brought out the worst qualities of the Kurds. Minor disturbances constantly occurred, and were soon followed by the massacre of Armenians at Sasun and other places, 1894 - 1896, in which the Kurds took an active part.
Many Kurds died at Turkish hands between 1915 and the end of World War I, but despite the trend to self-determination and the championing in the Treaty of Sèvres of Kurdish autonomy in the aftermath of World War I, Turkish resurgence under Kemal Atatürk prevented the achievement of Kurdish national independence. Turkey suppressed Kurdish revolts in 1925, 1930, and 1937 - 1938; while Iran did the same in the 1920s. A short-lived Soviet-sponsored Kurdish republic did not long outlast World War II.
When Ba'athist administrators thwarted Kurdish nationalist ambitions in Iraq, war broke out in the 1960s. In 1970 the Kurds rejected limited teritorial self-rule within Iraq, demanding larger areas including the oil-rich Kirkuk region. Iran fought the Kurds from 1979 on.

For more recent Kurdish history see Kurds.

This article uses text from 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica

Historiografi

2009-03-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

Historiografi

Historiografi adalah perkembangan penulisan sejarah dari masa ke masa. Dalam penuliasan sebuah Historiografi didalamnya memuat mengenai teori dan metodologi sejarah. Historiografi dapat diartikan sebagai sejarah penulisan sejarah untuk merekontruksi masa lalu. Dalam historiografi terdapat pemahaman atau persepsi atau refleksi kultural sejarawan tentang masa lalu sehingga mengandung arti subjektif.

Historiografi yang dipengaruhi oleh lingkungan zaman dan kebudayaan semasa sejarah itu ditulis menimbulkan subjektivitas. Karena di dalam penulisan sejarah sejarawan mendapatkan pengaruh tentang perkembangan penulisan sejarah, pengaruh zaman, lingkungan, kebudayaan pada setiap penulisan sejarah, perkembangan pengguaan teori dan metodologi dan seni pengungkapan serta penyajian sejarah. Subjektivitas juga timbul karena pemahaman orang sangat dipengaruhi oleh latar belakang individu, lingkungan sosial, lingkungan kultural, dan jiwa zaman.

Historiografi dapat diartikan sebagai sejarah intelektual atau mentalitas. Historiogarfi juga mengajarkan untuk mencari sebuah pemikiran seorang penulis sejarah. Dalam hal ini sejarawan akan mengalami proses pemahan untuk mengerti subjektivitas penulis sejarah. Penulis sejarah akan selalu aktif melakukan seleksi terhadap gejala yang diamatinya. Gejala yang diamati akan menjadi titik pendirian masa kini yang dijadikan faktor penentu perhatian seseorang terhadap gejala masa lampau.

Secara gambaran umum mengenai Historiografi merupakan representasi atau ungkapan dari kesadaran sejarawan dalam zamannya dan lingkungan kebudayaan di tempat sejarawan itu hidup. Dalam memahami sebuah historiogarfi yang diklarifikasikan dalam historiografi tradisional atau historiografi modern, terutama historiografi tradisional perlu diketahui ciri produk historiografi tersebut. Historiografi tradisional akan bercerita dalam batasan atau kisaran istana sentris, tetapi keadaan sosial masyarakat tidak pernah disinggung dalam penulisannya, masayarakat pada awakatau penulisan tersebut hanya sebatas bahwa masyarakat itu menjadi milik raja atau hanya sebatas bagian dari raja, jika penulisan tersebut bersifat sejarah, hanya sebatas pada penulisan sejarah politik, dan dalam penulisan hal yang penting adalah terdapat adanya mitos dan peristiwa yang bercampuraduk antara fiktif dan faktual.

Tokoh yang berperan dalam penulisan historiografi Indonesia tradisional adalah para pujangga kerajaan. Karena karya-karya yang masuk dalam kategori historiografi Indonesia tradisional merupakan karya-karya yang banyak dibuat pada zaman kerajaan. Pujangga memiliki peranan penting dalam hal ini, mereka akan penulis sebuah peristiwa. Mereka dapat dikatakan sebagai sejarawan awal Indonesia. Walaupun dalam tulisannya banyak kejadian yang ditulis dalam konteks fiktif dan faktual. Dalam hal itu pujangga memiliki maksud politik untuk memperkuat kedudukan sang patron.

Historiography

2009-03-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

There are two basic issues involved in historiography (Breisach, 1994). First, the study of the development of history as an academic discipline over time, as well as its development in different cultures and epochs. Second, the study of the academic tools, methods and approaches that have been and are being used, including the historical method.

The term "historiography" can also be used to refer to a specific body of historical writing that was written during a specific time concerning a specific issue. For instance, a statement about "medieval historiography" would refer to some issue in the academic discipline of Medieval History, and not to the actual history of the Middle Ages or to historical works written in that time (e.g., "during the last century, medieval historiography changed its focus from the study of political events to social and mental structures", or "medieval historiography has largely benefited from the recognition of the importance of parish records": that is, the discipline underwent some change).

Conal Furay and Michael J. Salevouris define historiography as "the study of the way history has been and is written — the history of historical writing... When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians."One should be cautious, however, that in the sense given in the previous paragraph when a historian does historiography they are actually studying "the events of the past directly".

Chinese historiography

In China, Sima Qian (around 100 BC) was the first to lay the groundwork for professional historical writing. His written work was the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), a monumental lifelong achievement in literature. Its scope extends as far back as the 16th century BC, including many treatises on specific subjects, along with individual biographies for prominent people, as well as exploring the lives and deeds of commoners found in his own time or in previous eras. His work influenced every subsequent author of history in China, including the prestigious Ban family of the Eastern Han Dynasty era.

Traditionalist Chinese historiography describes history in terms of dynastic cycles. In this view, each new dynasty is founded by a morally righteous founder. Over time, the dynasty becomes morally corrupt and dissolute. Eventually, the dynasty becomes so weak as to allow its replacement by a new dynasty.